A Kingdom in Ruins
by Applesodas
Summary: A mysterious and monstrous girl is brought into the Kingdom of Nohr. Said to have the powers of a devastating divine dragon, she is tasked with guarding the life of its Crown Prince. Xander believes that his knight's training is his first and foremost line of protection, and makes a decision to trust her. But he and Corrin will need more than the distant promise of a prophecy
1. Prologue: The Protector

The King's children seldom had time to themselves. He made sure of that personally. At best, he looked upon those within his issue who wasted their hours on frivolous things with dismissal. At worst, they were sent away to schools or homes in exile or simply deemed illegitimate and turned out. As a result, each of the numerous princes and princesses worked day and night to study the tome if they had magic, the sword if they were strong, or the quill, if they were sharp. Trailing after them were retainers, children of noble and common stock alike, all of whom could keep up with the grueling training regimens of their masters.

The sullen little girl with ash-colored hair had come from seemingly nowhere, flanked by two flaxen-haired maids in identical uniforms. Her title was a story that many found ludicrous to believe if it hadn't come from the King's own booming, gravelly voice.

"She— the prophecied dragon that guarded our forefathers— will guard my heir—" Garon clapped a hand to the shoulder of a gangly, mid-growth spurt Prince Xander. "…With her life." If anyone noticed the boy stagger back slightly from the unfamiliarity of the gesture, no one daired voice it.

Instead, the gathered courtiers peered down at her, a scrap of a thing with wide red eyes the bloodshot color of a rabbit's. Her dress was neat, if plain and clearly hastily cludged together from sewing scraps that the maids had dug out of some out-of-fashion nursery. Her lower jaw trembled as she took two shaky steps forward and curtseyed. She was unused the the patent buckled shoes that they had found out of some hand-me-down pile that the king's own children had outgrown.

The girl was a creature of some sort plucked from the woods, or some conjuring of a dark mage. They weren't sure, and frankly didn't care. And now, the girl was to accompany the one chance they would have out of the King's iron fist, standing at the side of the boy a little older than her.

He gripped the throne as he looked upon his eldest son and the new child like a hunter would his two most prized foxhounds. King Garon's eyes brimmed with pride. So too did his gaze towards the children, imperious and distant, tell them to know their place.

"Protect him like you would your life, Corrin. You know what you were brought here to do." Commanded the King, before dismissing the court and retreating back into the shadows of his private chambers.

Xander knew his father to speak of things as an honor when he really intended to burden others. Was it a practical joke, to have a girl that looked scared of her wits by a simple introduction to his father's court?

For years now, he had had the full confidence of his father as he undertook the training of a Nohrian knight. For countless nights he had collapsed into bed after practicing to knock his foe's head from their shoulders on horseback, sore in more places than he had even imagined. He had taken the time to win two allies— and friends— in Elise and Leo, his half-siblings that were gifted with magical skills. Xander had a plan for every contingency that his father and the world that surrounded him could come up with. Most importantly, he had a plan to earn the right to wield Siegfried, a blade said to soot bolts of black fire that aimed true as an outlaw's bow.

But now, his fate was in the hands of someone barely out of childhood.

The fifteen-year-old fumed as he briskly walked past a row of footmen dusting a corner of the castle that was seldom used. He needed time to think, and he needed it fast.

Dragons and Prophecies! He could spit the words from his mouth if he hadn't been trying to quell the words of a temper tantrum-prone schoolboy. Clenching his fists to his side, Xander took several deep breaths, unclenched his hands, and looked around him. The hallway was empty, save a few footmen sitting on crates, polishing serving trays until they shone bright with silver. Noticing him, the younger one— a silver-haired young boy Corrin's age— got up and clumsily bowed.

Corrin herself trailed after him like a shadow, her eyes still alert and shifting nervously on her feet. Looking down, Xander felt the same twinge of responsibility as when he'd said something untowards to a younger soldier, or to someone like Leo. None of this was much of a choice for her, was it?

"I realize that I behaved in an unseemly manner just now," he said, drawing himself up to his full height and turning to the girl. "Father didn't tell me that I had needed a guard. Listen, why don't I show you around the castle?"

"Okay." Her voice, quiet but certain, held a note of resignation to it. The hesitation only added to what Xander had been curious about through the course of the audience— Where had his father found a girl like this?

They proceeded down the hallway in silence. Despite his frustration at still receiving protection from a child, Xander couldn't help but look back to see just how Corrin regarded the place that was to be her new home. Her eyes, eerie and red, had followed the trail of a hunt painted on several tapestries of blue and gold that hung on the walls. Despite her young age, she could devour information and did so freely. He could tell that in a person, when their eyes followed the details of a painting or a swordfight with close scrutiny.

Xander found what he was looking for at the end of the hallway. Two dark banners emblazoned with the kingdom's spiked crest framed the doorway. Usually the sight of the banners strewn about the castle comforted him. But nothing could right the ship of Xander's mood quite like angrily thinking about how his father had let him down. Alone. Preferably with a sparring session afterwards.

Inside the chamber were more finely-woven tapestries, continuing the story told of the hunt. Knights, dark mages, and great knights pulled at a golden net until their faces strained. He could even see the puckered lips on a courtier that drew the net away. Nohrian art was never subtle about those sorts of things, nor was it short of people willing to commission them in high works of art.

He saw Corrin press a palm into whatever was in the net in the hunting scene, and peered closer.

Inside was not one, but a small family of dragons, bound together painfully by the net forged in Nohrian gold, steel and fire.

Her eyes narrowed, and she turned to face him.

Up until now, the girl had more or less acceded to his questions, and his father's commands. In a glimpse, though Xander saw the fiery determination of someone who was, among those things, fed up. He glanced at the final tapestry that the king's artisans kept out of the way. Corrin's breathing grew ragged as she clenched her teeth at the tapestry. She turned away from him and ran into a corner fo the room, where she huddled with the occasional voiceless scream. The dragon ––could it have been her?An ear-shattering roar, sharp and sound, echoed throughout the hallway. He squeezed his eyes shut reflexively.

In her place when Xander came to was what his father had promised would be near him- a dragon with the horns and clawed hooves of the tapestry . The problem was that she was angry, and likely at him. Out of all the lessons that Prince Xander knew of, and that he had prepared to take, this one was something else entirely.


	2. Chances

"Your Highness! What seems to be the matter here— " The doors to the room flew open and the footman, wielding the silver platter he was polishing, jumped in front of the Prince. He was about Corrin's age and was likely just an apprentice. Already he had been taught that the lives of the royal family was worth throwing oneself in front of a monster. "Get back, sire! Go call for help!"

It was taking a lot out of a usually sanguine Xander to register that in front of him was a dragon. Corrin had sprouted horns and towered over the room. Her eyes blazed red for the briefest of moments as she touched the tapestry and realized what it depicted. What people like him and the footman did to people like her.

"No, I'll stay," he said, holding up his hand. "What's your name?"

"Jakob, sire!" The pale-haired servant peered over the tray, mustering up enough courage to take aim with it. Rumor had it that in the shadows of the servants' hallways, maids and manservants trained in secret to attain skills with cleavers and daggers they wore hidden in their uniforms.

Xander glimpsed at the sword at his side. By his guess, the girl— even in dragon form— had limits. He had heard talk from the armorers and quartermasters of ahook-bladed swords forged to pierce wyverns' hides, and likely the hides of dragons as well. Unfortunately, the weapon he wore into the castle that day was a plain, standard-issue iron blade that any cavalier could find in a smithy.

"Jakob, stand down. I want to talk to her." His eyes focused on the creature rampaging across the room, lashing its tail and claws at the pieces of the tapestry. It howled and roared in pain inflicted not with blades, but with the images of what it had seen. Xander's fingers went to the clasps of his sword-belt.

Time slowed as he heard the beat of his heart thud dully, carrying the weight of the decision he as to make.

The blade made a soft clank as Xander knelt down and set it out at the front of the carpet. Even though the dragon's eyes were shielded, he knew that it— no, she— followed the decision he had made with her eyes.

"Jakob, if you please." He turned to the young footman, who watched in alarm as his crown prince distanced himself from the sheathed weapon.

"Your Highness, are you sure—" an air of confidence had crept back into the younger boy. Though he was permitted to say nothing, the Prince could tell that Jakob bit back a protest against deferring to the girl that had sprouted horns and claws.

He remembered his father's words back in the court. You know what you were brought here to do, the king had said. What had that meant?

It would be for naught if he or Corrin succumbed to their base instincts, knight and dragon, to end one another in a tussle of fangs and blade. If his father knew what he was doing, then there was another future ahead of them.

"You will come to no harm," Xander mustered the most honorable of voices that he had seen from the men and women that trained him. If pressed, he would even deign to admit that he drew on the tales of knightly deeds he had heard around campfires or through bards' tales. But Corrin didn't need to know any of that. He drew himself to his full height and, step by step, approached the dragon. From the corner of his eye, he saw the footman ready to dart out the door and alert someone else.

He cleared his throat. "Corrin." Xander's voice was still, mustering up the tone he used to talk to Camilla about a ride he had in a village or Leo about a book he had read. Where things stood at that moment, things were wont to go to pieces if either of them left the room seriously hurt.

"Corrin, I'm not going to hurt you. Please." That wasn't a word that Garon had raised any of his children to say very often, and Xander wasn't inclined to use it much on his own. He commanded. He listend. But seldom did he really need to convince anyone outside of his family to do anything. The feeling stirred something alien in his chest— uncertainty, perhaps. He didn't like it.

The dragon slowed its mission of pawing at the ground and walls furiously. Its breathing, ragged and scraping against the air, grew quieter. Xander met its gaze cautiously, his hands suspended in midair in a manner most unbecoming of a knight of Nohr. Besides him, Jakob stood stock-still, unsure of what would happen next.

A blue glow emanated from the dragon's neck and spread throughout the room. Both Xander and Jakob staggered back, squeezing their eyes shut at the sudden burst of unearthly, gleaming light. Instinctively, the prince felt for the weapon that he had laid down, finding it but still temporarily blinded. In a few moments, the light passed and, with spots of dark color hindering his gaze, he looked upon the room.

The girl had returned, clutching a small pendant tied to a string around her neck that, in his ignorance for baubles and trinkets, Xander had overlooked. Corrin's eyes, red and visible again, peered into his.

"Can we go somewhere else?" she asked clearly, pointing to the tapestries that were now riddled with clawmarks and holes, and then at the door. Her voice held the resoluteness of someone far older than either of them. Corrin brushed past both Jakob and Xander, her steps shaking as she approached the door.

At that moment, a sharp rap at the entrance of the room caught the attention of all three youths. "Prince Xander!" The voice was female, and belonged to, if he remembered correctly, a bespectacled, older maid that looked after Leo and Elise's magic lessons.

He was proven right as the familiar maid entered the room and curtseyed in a rush. Her glasses were almost askew as she almost knocked into Jakob. But with a sidestep, she set him aside and turned to Xander to speak.

"It's Prince Leo and Princess Elise! They were out for a ride to a swamp to gather herbs, and we received this just now. We've sent knights to comb the woodlands, but they've found nothing. But there's this."

The maid handed over an envelope with a broken wax seal. Corrin and Jakob sidled alongside him to read it. Inside was a scrawled note with no words but a location. Two locks of hair— one pale gold, one straw-gold, were bound together with an expensive ribbon of blood-red silk.

Xander's eyes flashed with alarm, despite his exhaustion at the long day and the ordeal that they had just completed. The court was a cold place, and he cared little for most of its inhabitants. But if anyone's endangerment meant he would lend his blade, it was this.

"There's no time!" cried Xander. "I need both of you at my side. We're going." He gestured to the maid. "Alert the grooms to saddle three horses. Muster whatever soldiers you can." His eyes flashed with anger as he gestured towards the stables.

"What did the note mean?" asked Corrin. She was steadier on her feet now, or didn't want him to know otherwise.

"It means someone's taken my brother and sister for ransom," Xander said, through gritted teeth. Beside him, Jakob got out of the way as two attendants strapped a cavalier's breastplate and pauldrons onto him. Another fetched light arms for Corrin and a small set of daggers for Jakob. He held up his hand and whispered to the attendant, who brought a healing staff as well.

"Misstress Corrin. What arms will you be taking to protect yourself?" Asked one of the swarm of servants that now lined the stable.

She thought for a moment, and fingered the stone at her neck with a frown. "I've some skill with a sword." answered Corrin absently. She gave a nod to the prince, who was already on his horse, and let herself be lifted by a servant onto a second one.

The young dragon didn't know much about the court that she had entered, having wandered the woods before soldiers had captured her and attendents wheedled her into what she presumed was a nest of vipers.

Among the clues she found there was the tapestry, which told of what people like Xander were capable of. But by his actions— talking to her, and flying off into battle to find those he cared about— he was capable of many more things. And for that, he had earned one solitary, but valuable chance.


	3. A Test of Strength

The sound of quiet rivers and creeks surrounded the small scouting party that sped out from the shadowy keep of Nohr's king. They rode towards a swamp that was popular with the dark mages that studied their arts under the king's auspices. Leo, a prodigious warlock and a middle child of the king's, was trapped somewhere inside.

"Why would he need to look at plants to study magic?" Corrin asked. She had no gift for the arts, outside of what power she drew from her dragonstone. The two didn't add together. But she hadn't known much— just bits and pieces of her people and the knowledge that the palace attendents had passed down to her in the outskirts fort where she had grown up. In all of her isolated existence that she could recall, Corrin had been trained by Nohr's knights to work at the service of one of the royal family's members. It had just been her lot in life that the person in question, Xander, wasn't a complete monster.

"We brew them into vulneraries and draughts. Winters here can get harsh, so we take recipes from the Ice Tribe to treat illnesses." Jakob answered, his voice settling into a snideness that she decided she didn't quite care for. He was a comfortably-raised boy, all tea parties and fine linens. "Some say that the poison in these plants can be used to coat daggers and weapons." There was an edge to his words as he stared ahead.

The young servant held a small lantern, which he shielded carefully from the rain that gently fell in the marshlands they traveled through. He rode at the forefront of the group alongside a cavalier, who spurred his horse on silently.

"Leo has a curiosity about the natural world that exceeds what is required of his magical studies," Xander explained. "But I'd have thought he'd be more careful than this, especially if he took Elise with him." He drummed his fingers on the horse's reins.

Corrin looked to him expectedly. The names meant nothing to her.

"Our sister. She trusts too easily." Xander glanced sideways as he guided his own horse, and gestured to the knights that carried Corrin and Jakob. "I never worry if she's with Leo or Camilla—"

"How many siblings do you have?" Corrin ticked off finger after finger. "I'm confused. Your father doesn't look that old," she said nonchalontly.

Even in the dim light, she could see the older boy's cheeks grow pink as he turned away. She wasn't sure why. Jakob's eyes widened in confusion as well, but settled into a knowing smirk. Were all servants as overconfident as this boy was? He irritated her.

"Many," was Xander's eventual response, terse and quick, that she received. Looking over at him and Jakob, she shrugged. Older teenagers, whether they were in an outpost or in the capitol city, were impossible to understand.

Frankly, the footman wasn't even that much older than her, but likely was privy to better gossip than a cursed, shapeshifting bodyguard was.

There was a faint clink of metal in the distance that she heard throughout the wetland, but decided to ignore. Cavaliers' armor made that noise, didn't it?

"Milord, I hear something," the cavalier carrying Jakob piped up. "It's off in that clearing." She struck the reins softly and moved ahead. Side by side, Xander and Corrin followed suit.

It wasn't early when they had departed the castle, but the copse of trees seemed to grow darker and darker. The footfalls of the small traveling party's horses quieted as well. Corrin adjusted the band in her hair from where the horse's steps had jostled it aside. She felt next for her sword.

"Halt!" Xander called, guiding his horse into the center, where a pale sliver of moonlight shone through the scattering of clouds. A few figures stood clustered there.

"Lord Brother!" A small, high-pitched voice called. "Is that you?" A short pigtailed girl that Corrin recognized than her held a glowing blue staff over a pink-armored young villager, who was unconscious and clutching her head.

"Took you long enough," grumbled a short-haired boy next to her, who wore a collar with points so sharply ironed that she suspected they served as last-resort weaponry. He cradled a plain red book under his arm, and was probably the Leo, the boy who loved to study.

She saw the hint of a smile break onto Xander's face. But in a moment, his face flashed into alertness as he reared his horse back. The steed whinnied with alarm as he sped away from the party. "Get back!" Roared the young knight to his siblings. "Something's attacking!"

He drew his sword and parried off the blow of something heavy that swung right for his head. In the darkness, Corrin saw the flash of a weapon as the longsword's blow caused the attack to glance away from Xander and his horse. She leapt from the saddle of the cavalier who she had accompanied up to that point, and saw Jakob draw out a dagger besides her.

The sound of heavy metal clinking that Corrin swore was the knights' armor had belonged to something else entirely. From the depths of nearby ponds rose four figures, hulking, green-skinned, and heavily muscled. They wore masks over their faces and swung broken iron chains the size of a human man as they slowly approached the Nohrians in the center of the grove.

Corrin felt a burst of heat fly over her shoulders as fire fizzled into existence, even within the damp air of the swamp. The impressive feat had been conjured by Leo, whose book was open in his palm. His eyes blazed with concentration as he sent the flames hurtling towards the undead creature. Xander had sent his steed charging towards another of the monsters. Jakob, falling back, hurled one of his knives while shielding the young princess and her fallen companion from harm.

It was time to show them what she could do as well. Her underhand sword strike aimed for the jaw of the nearest monster, which roared in pain as the point of the blade struck its neck. Dark blood the shade of a fresh tar pit dripped into the earth, staining Corrin's hands quite a bit as well. It staggered back as it freed itself of the weapon. A roar of pain and the stench of rotten meat filled the air around them. Somewhere behind her, Corrin heard Elise begin to cry. She watched as a cavalier sped towards the injured monster at full charge, its sword as true and sharp as an executioner's blade.

Life on the outskirts had shown her ruthlessness. The knights of Nohr's capitol had her all the more certain of it. Spell-fire and steel rang through the grove as they drove the monsters away. It was simpler for Corrin that way. Curious, she looked over her shoulder to see where Xander was. After all, the job she had been given was to protect him.

The edge of Xander's sword was struggling against the meaty arm of a Faceless. She had heard a knight use the name as he shouted directions to his compatriot, who had picked up Elise and the unconscious girl onto a horse and retreated to a far corner of the grove. Jakob had followed suit, his healing staff in tow. As she bounded towards where the Nohrian crown prince was locked in combat, she noticed a glint of steel and the too-familiar nocking noise of an arrow against a bowstring. Corrin glanced down at her sword— useless from so far away, and then at Xander, who stood to her back.

She grit her teeth, and placed her hands around her neck, feeling the lump of silken cord.

"Xander?"

He struck at the Faceless, lopping off one of its limbs, and looked back for the briefest of moments. "Yes?"

"I'll be right back." The stone glowed the familiar shade of blue that she had known, and in seconds, a clawed and horned dragon charged towards where an an eager outlaw had been lying in wait.

The ride back to the castle passed in a rush. She heard the whispers of "prophecy" and "curse" from the knights but felt only the cool balm of a healing staff passed over where one of the outlaw's arrow had grazed her shoulder.

"Scrappy little girl, isn't she?" That was likely Jakob, whose praise Corrin already knew had to be hard-earned.

"I've never seen anyone fight quite like that," Xander's voice was quiet, and she from its nearness that she was riding back on the prince's own steed. This was the second time he had shown her trust. Was it repayment, or did he really start to think the better of someone who could do what she did?

For the time being, her job was done.


	4. Days Passed

Corrin woke in the keep to the sound of spattering rain agains the side of a window. She shifted her arms and found them as heavy as lead. Shaking the exhaustion from herself, she rose to find herself face-to-face with crystal blue eyes and a shock of light pink hair held in a frilly band. With an alarmed yelp, she rolled away back into the predictable darkness of her pillow, sending her quilts flying.

"I'm s-so sorry! Were you still asleep? I was given orders to try to check up on you!" babbled the high-pitched voice of a young maidservant.

The girl darted nervously like a rabbit fleeing an archer's bow. "You had asked for an early wake-up call, and I thought…" Felicia was about her and Jakob's age, but lacked either's nerves or temperament. Ice and a few snowflakes materialized in her palm as she spoke. Corrin wondered what it would look like if she had aimed daggers at a foe like Jakob did while sparring. Likely, she had a side to her that would be quite capable in battle.

"No, I'm fine, I'm up. You did a fine job." mumbled Corrin, holding her hand to ward the Ice Tribe maidservant off.

"Is that what getting a wake-up call means for everyone in this castle?" She rubbed the side of her face with a clean washcloth, taking the soap that the maid proferred to brush the sleep-grime away. A hollow, weightless feeling settled into her chest despite the fact that, at the very least temporarily, she was safe. No one thought of her as anything other than someone that could be useful to Prince Xander and King Garon. Felicia had stolen away somewhere to gather her clothes, leaving her alone, staring into the eyes that no courtier failed to comment on when she walked past, alone or by Xander's side.

A week had passed since her entry into the court and the occasion where she had proved herself to be a capable protector of Nohr's Crown Prince. The time had been spent mostly in repose, recovering from the wounds that their small cobbled-together rescue team had picked up in their search for Leo and Elise. The two royals had taken to her, particularly the youngest daughter of the King. Corrin caught the girl's eye in the courtyard, she on foot and Elise on horseback.

"Good morning, Corrin!" the voice of the princess piped up as she guided her small brown pony out in the courtyard. Corrin looked overhead as the small girl, accompanied by a groom, was riding from another part of Castle Krakenberg. In Elise's hand was a plainly carved healing staff.

"Training already?"

"I'm want to be as strong as my brothers Xander and Leo!" She grinned. "That means getting up early, just like them!" Her mood was bright, but she sagged in the saddle a little. The spirited confidence was something Corrin understood, but it would do no good to have a princess so young hitting her limits.

"Do you want to know a secret?" Corrin wasn't that much older than Elise, but she had a few years on her and knew how to be gracious, if only when it came to talking about fights and sparring.

She shifted closer. "It's okay to take things a little slower." She said simply. "You don't have to be Xander to be brave. I promise."

"Don't have to be who?"

Startled, Corrin jumped back, flinching away from the familiar voice. Xander strode into the courtyard. "You know what I meant. It's weird to want your siblings to be exactly like you." She rolled her eyes. "But your decisions are yours, Milord. That's just the opinion of this humble retainer." The words weren't hers, but they were the proper things to say.

"I see," His mouth set into a stern-looking line that she had seen a few times during meetings with the King. It was obvious that he had been working on a good poker face to deal with whatever the Court would throw at him.

Following Xander was Leo and a purple-haired girl she hadn't seen before. The new girl stood tall and wielded a poleax nearly as tall as she was. Looking it over, Corrin noticed that it was likely something one wielded from the back of a mount.

A shadow swooped from the sky in thundrous flaps as the dust in the courtyard was kicked up in billowing, eye-stinging clouds. Corrin drew back against the walls as something large thudded into the gorund, shaking the bricks of the courtyard a little.

"That's my girl," purred Camilla, catching the reins of the coal-colored wyvern. With a hop, she stepped onto the stirrups and was on the ferocious-looking creature in an instant. Its eyes flashed menacingly and Corrin wondered, as she stared it down, if that was what it felt like when other people looked at her. Dragons and Wyverns were of different stock, but still, the connection was one she had made. "Well, I enjoyed breakfast with my two favorite brothers, but a patrol awaits with my newest retainer, who's already above Nohr on her mount. Perhaps I'll bring her by for a playdate with this one," she gestured at Corrin. Blowing a kiss with the confidence of someone a few years older than her, Camilla struck the reins of her wyvern, speeding off into the sky with a ferocity that left even stone-faced Corrin impressed. Trailing behind the wyvern rider was the poleax, bearing the bright blue standard of Nohr flapping merrily in the breeze.

"There she goes," Leo mused. "Flashy as always."

"I want to show you something after practice." Xander said. "Both of you." He held the dulled iron blade impatiently, and had another two swords slung over his shoulder in an equally battered sheath. "Leo, you were interested in pursuing the blade, were you not?"

The boy grimaced. "I…I profess it's not my weapon of choice, but I may find it useful, should I be without my tomes."

"I can go first if he's not sure." Corrin piped up. Despite the bit of awkwardness with Felicia the maid in her quarters earlier, she was eager to try to figure out what Xander was like as a fighter. The clash in the copse of trees seemed lik ea blur now, with time and injuries casting a bit of distance between them. Their previous interaction with a sword, he had laid down his weapon, a different choice entirely. But now, there was a new opportunity.

She found her footing in the practice grounds easily, staring down Xander. She had never noticed how much taller he was. He held the practice longsword straight over his head before charging at her with an overhead swing. It wasn't the fastest of strikes, but Xander wasn't a fast fighter. He timed how he would strike an opponent, decided, and overpowered them.

Even knowing what he was going to do, the blow struck the sword in her hands hard, knocking her off balance. That was fine. Her next steps were an open question. He circled her, sword at the ready again. She imagined him fighting atop a horse again, and realized that even on foot, Xander stayed in motion. Motion meant patterns, and that meant she could catch him unawares. Knights were never surprising in their habits, after all.

Corrin put weight on one foot and leapt off to the side, taking her blade and driving the flat of the sword at one of his shoudler pauldrons. If she had an agility advantage on a foe, that meant attacks from the side or a leaping strike would do the trick .At the last minute, Xander's sword caught the blade of hers.

A flash of blue light at her neck filled her field of sight as the fight in front of Corrin faded. She saw in a glimpse a vision of her current foe, older and armor-clad, and atop a horse. A longsword the color of night glinted in his hands. At the edge of her vision was another blade, golden and shining, in the hands of someone she couldn't see.

She awoke face up on the practice grounds.

"Can you get up?" asked Xander. He looked at her quizzically, feeling like the victory in the practice bout hadn't quite been earned. Corrin seemed distracted by the rays of a lantern's light catching her dragonstone with a glint. Winning a bout with her should have been more difficult than it was, and claiming the practice round had given him no more confidence that he was improving.

It had been a curious opportunity to spar with the mysterious girl that his father had kept talking about. She had honed her skills with othe rknights, true, but held a power that couldn't quite be rationalized away with that.

There were abilities that likely still lay dormant within the retainer he had been assigned. Ones that could claim glory for Nohr, and ones that could destroy it. Whichever ones Corrin could use, he wasn't sure. If she already knew how to use those abilities, there still remained the question of whether or not she wanted him to know.

"Leo, is something the matter?" Xander asked, his thoughts still lingering on what the girl was really capable of doing. The words were a distraction from his questions about Corrin, and partially away from the critical comments he had towards his own performance in the sparring session. The boy had peered at the stone around Corrin's neck for a while, and if Xander was honest, he was the likeliest of the three of them to know what was going on.

"Nothing at all," replied the young mage. For all he meant, it simply could have been that Leo needed a little more time to figure out what was really going on.

A messenger with the castle footman's livery and a familiar pale grey ponytail strode into the courtyard.

"Prince Xander. Prince Leo. Miss Corrin." Jakob had gained a spike of confidence, evidently, and stood taller. That was a good sign. Having servants, soldiers and retainers able to walk away from skirmishes in one piece was testament to a leader's success."The King has a request of you in his chambers. I will be accompanying you." Bowing, he allowed Xander to lead the way back into the castle.

The hallway was lined with portraits of Nohr's past kings, queens and nobility. Weapons and ceremonial armor lined the corridor leading to King Garon's offices. Leo's eyes locked on a purple-colored spellbook, Brynhildr propped open to an illustration of a tree. It lay on an elegantly carved wooden pedestal and was said to be a compendium of sorcery that baffled the most advanced of Nohr's dark mages.

Despite the fact that he was usually focused on what he was told, Xander's gaze was drawn to a sword mounted against a nearby wall and locked away in a flat glass case. He knew its dark colored metal and strange forked shape by heart. His attention was seized by the blade Siegfried like nothing else. It meant only one thing to him.

Worthiness.

Corrin, Leo, and Jakob looked at him expectedly. He had been caught staring, and it especially unnerved him to see the girl's red eyes flicker from him to Siegfried and back.

Blushing in embarrassment, Xander quickened his pace towards timelier deeds, looking straight ahead so he wouldn't have to look at anything else.


	5. The King's Question

The first time Corrin had seen the King properly, it was within the hallways of Castle Krakenberg's throne room, which seemed to stretch on forever into a sea of contempt-filled faces. She had been wary of the place for reasons, but regardless of the time of day she passed it, something pulled her onwards towards her actual destination. She met the news of a summons from him with relief.

With an unusually deferential silence, Jakob led her and the two Nohrian princes past the throne room to the king's private offices. Two dark mages loomed over them, glowering as they entered. One was a man that had the appearance of holding back insults, his face pointed and menacing. The other, a sorcerer clad in an ornate circlet and elaborate feathered cloak, was pale-faced and stood by the king's side. A heavy-looking mask of carved brass covered one side of his face.

"Did your father look inside a marsh cave for his advisors?" She asked under her breath. Leo stifled a snort of laughter. Xander, however, was unamused, shaking his head briskly. "Not now," he said between gritted teeth, shooting a look over to the center of the study. There was King Garon, stone-faced and silent, watching his children confer with his eldest son's newest retainer. The group broke apart and, taking quick steps, followed Jakob the footman towards the desk where the King and the two mages were in a quiet discussion.

"Prince Xander," the gravelly-voiced older man spoke up. "I take it that you've been training with your new guard." His expression was impassive as he looked towards Corrin. She held back a flinch as the king looked towards the dragonstone. Her heart skipped a beat, thinking back to the knights she had trained with at the outposts. Were they the ones responsible for bringing her to Windmire? Had they fed him tales of her transformative powers and fueled the story of a prophecy? Try as she might, she still struggled to piece together what her aim was. All that remained within her was a phantom pain that spoke of something Nohr had done to her. To her people.

"Of course, Lord father."

"I received a report that she fought off three Faceless in the Druidsbane Swamps to retrieve Prince Leo and Princess Elise."

The pale-skinned mage cackled. "Those will snap you in half if you're not careful," he said, with no small amount of malice seeping into his words. "Is there a reason you decided to linger in those woods? I'd have thought our genius prince was smarter than that."

"We were careful. But Elise's friend had received a wound." Leo spoke up, making direct contact with the conniving Iago's gaze. "We felt it imprudent to go back without her." Though she was uncertain as to what the word meant, Corrin found herself nodding in agreement with the boy.

"We had the Faceless subdued. No knights that accompanied me were harmed, aside from a few scratches." Xander explained. "I prepared accordingly for this mission, and Corrin was able to take out the bandit that ransomed them."

"That's right," Corrin found herself saying. "By the time word got to you, it might've been too late. Xander needed to act quickly."

"You think?" The voice of the masked sorcerer rang sharply. "You are some whelp of a lizard the king plucked from the sewers of that northern outpost. He did not bring you here for your thoughts." Stomping over to the three youths, he towered over her with a glower that gleamed as brass-bright as the mask he wore. What was it about this man that made him eerier than the undead that she had just fought? "Three Faceless and some sellsword with a bow and a note. Well done, indeed."

She could see sparks of purple magical power emenate from his fingertips, and grabbed the dragonstone, which began to glow. The energy under her skin tingled with the familiarity of putting up her necessary defenses. Her teeth bit into her bottom lip as they sharpened in the stone's light and warmth against her fingers.

Xander's hand on her arm stilled Corrin's anger-quickened heartbeat. "Don't fight him. We'll lose." He said through gritted teeth. Glaring at him, she clenched her hands and stepped back behind him once more, forcing her face back into something resembling impassivity.

"Enough," boomed the voice of King Garon. His hand slapped against his table as he stood, and the sound reverberated through the tense conversation between his retainers and his son's.

"If I had wanted to hear pointless squabbles, I would have visited the quarters of my concubines." His lip curled in a condescending sneer that sent Corrin, Xander, and Leo glancing in any direction but towards him. Perhaps there was a reason that she was wary of spending time within the King's inner circle. Thankfully spending time with his children hadn't been as nearly suffocating an experience.

Iago sulked back to his position standing behind the king, but she knew he was unlikely to forget the slight against him, especially by a little girl and two princes that he thought he could walk all over. If they ever met on opposite sides of a battlefield, she would have snapped his neck with a strike of her talons before he even knew what had happened.

Her attention was back to the King, who was finishing an explanation of something to his sons. "These two tasks won't take a day. Perhaps they'll take years." King Garon's voice was grim. "But how this mission proceeds will be a test of what you'll decide as King yourself," he turned to Xander. Everything about the meeting had gotten under Corrin's skin, and she wasn't even sure what they had just been asked to do.

"What would you presume would happen?" snapped Xander. His brow was more furrowed than usual as they departed the hallway of the king's chambers. "Did you think that could take both those mages in a fight right in front of my father?"

"He had no respect for any of us, including your father."

"He is not kept here for his pleasantries or mannerisms. My father finds him of use in magic that can take down any of his foes," hissed the Prince. "None of us trust him more than a Elise can hurl a boulder off a cliff. But he has power, and that's something, like it or not, that earns the ear of my father."

"Is that why he summoned me to the Castle?" A lump of something— anger, disappointment, perhaps, rose in her throat. As much as she was certain when pointed at something to kill, to destroy, or to overpower, the notion that there were times to stand down was alien. It left her vulnerable, a feeling that she faced down with as much anticipation as death itself.

"That's why he chose you. But you're more than your power." Leo's attention broke from the case holding the purple spellbook, which he had pressed his fingers to for the last few moments. "Unless you've craved power and nothing else, of course. There are many that choose to pursue that within this court." He stared her down, assessing her like a chesspiece on a board that was far larger than themselves. His gaze flickered to Xander, too, as if their aims to become stronger was a disease that could spread unchecked.

There's something that the boy wasn't saying. They weren't words hidden by malice, like the mage had done. But trepidition still weighed down the boy's calculations. Corrin knew instinctively that getting the truth out of him would be a hard task to do. Xander faced away from her, still stewing over her outburst in the meeting.

"What did the King ask of you?" she asked, after the younger boy had departed, summoned by a tutor to lessons elsewhere in the castle.

"My father issued us two missions," Xander held up his hand. "First, we are to search for a songstress traveling between our land and Hoshido, singing a prophecy about you and a kingdom that was destroyed— supposedly, by Nohrians. Second, I must find a sage in the mountains. That man was the person who forged this." He rapped his knuckles against the glass case containing the sword. "Only with his blessing can a knight wield it. Otherwise, his bond with the blade is incomplete no matter his strength."

It made Corrin a bit more at ease to know that she wasn't the only thing worrying the Crown Prince. The formidable blade Siegfried was a deadly looking marvel. It also likely was used to subdue whatever other dragons walked the earth. Her heart lurched at the thought of it. If the Xander in the vision could turn on her, what good was it to befriend someone who would cut her down without hesitation someday? The tides of what had been preordained, by the past the tapestry had drawn and the future forecasted by of some unknown prophetess— did they already set her future in stone?

The two blades, one gold and one obsidian, glinted at the back of her mind with an ominous, shining presence.

"I'm worried," was all Corrin would say. "Everything changed so fast within a week." The wariness crept back into her voice, despite her best efforts.

"It's inevitable in a place like this," Xander closed his eyes, adjusting the prince's circlet that sat upon his forehead. "All we can do is to face it with the strength we possess. But I will say this."

She looked up at him.

"I feel safer knowing you've lent me your strength." The uncommon sight of a smile crept onto his face, tired and sincere

Corrin had been confident that she was stronger than him. Xander worked hard, but could be surpassed if she did as well. But the feeling of failing to protect him was a new worry, and one that she hadn't expected to develop. The idea that she owed him one favor had grown into two, and a simple obligation had become more complicated than Corrin knew what to do with.

It had been of no consequence that moment when she had learned of what his people had done to hers. But his words, his encouragement, and the proferring of a friendship was rarer than anything Corrin had ever encountered. It unsettled her far more than any loss in a sparring session.

There was time aplenty to worry about what everything meant. That was the best tale she could tell herself until she ran out of it.


	6. An Unexpected Connection

Inevitability was a word that stuck on Corrin's mind like a wound that refused to fully heal. She went through the motions of the passing months with all the confidence that she had seen in the retainers of the other princes and princesses. The fact that the ruler of Nohr not she, that decided where she would go and what she would do sat as a bitter taste in her mouth. The reminder of it permeated her days, blurring whatever she felt for the king's children, who still thought of her as a curiosity to be welcomed into their court.

In the winter of her fifth year in the castle, she found herself with a moment alone at the door of the room of tapestries once more. With a shaking hand, Corrin reached for the handle of the door. It warmed to her touch, and swung open, likely unlocked by some servant dusting up.

Everything was just as she remembered, down to the images that had been etched in to her memory from the first day onwards.

"You can't seem to forget this, can you?" Startled, she turned around with her fists clenched. She wasn't easy to sneak up on, but the snide-voiced footman Jakob had managed it.

"What do you want?" snapped Corrin. It would have been mortifying to see Xander or Leo standing in the doorway behind her. She wouldn't have wanted to explain anything to Camilla, either, who meant well but guarded her family over outsiders with unerring ruthlessness. Elise, sweet-natured and sincere, had little understanding of court politics and the damage that it could do. She had forgotten about the servant that trailed after them, who went about his business. Usually.

But it seemed that he had remembered the one event that neither she nor Xander had mentioned in her first day in the kingdom's castle.

"Nobody visits this room, save for a few scholars and the servants that dust out these chambers. You and the King seemed to be the exception." Jakob's voice was quiet, but laced with the same suspicion that she had seen in just about everyone. Even Leo, who was starting to become more talkative about Nohr's politics and surrounding lands, stayed guarded when the topic of the dragons came up. The story the King had sold them on what dragons meant to the royal family remained rooted in place.

Jakob had been a silent, if extremely nosy, presence at the side of the royal family in the entirety of Corrin's briefer period of servitude. Aside from chiding Felicia, his fellow attendant, she had never seen him express anything but clipped politeness to nobility and contempt to anyone else. The two years that had passed sharpened his features, but so too had it given her a few inches and a more menacing glare for her foes. She fixed such a glare on the servant.

"Is this room forbidden to go into? I was never told that it was out of bounds. And what's more," she stepped back into the chamber. "It was a dragon being caged that were woven into the walls. How could you know what that felt like?"

There was a bitterness in him that she recognized and shared, as loath as Corrin was to empathize with the difficult servant. On the surface, he was a man who appeared to care little past keeping a dagger at the throat of Nohr's foes and making sure tea services were set up properly.

"As hard as it is to believe, I want to listen to that pain as well. And I believe the same goes for the Young Master and his siblings." Jakob adjusted the hem of his cravat so that it sat just right, and looked towards the direction of the castle's main hall. "Whatever work they intend to do to make things right, he'll try to put his heart into the right place."

"But how will I know that for sure?" The tapestry seemed to ripple slightly, despite the room's lack of windows. She had noticed it, but wasn't sure if Jakob did.

"You don't." The servant shrugged. "But when there's no good choices, you take the best chance that you're given. That's how you learn to survive." He ran his fingers lazily along one of the many sheathed daggers that he carried. Regardless of what fine liveries he would don as a fledgling butler, the deadlier side of his job was never a secret. "More specifically, that's how I learned to survive. No parents, a job that required dawn-to-dusk work, and an expectation that I earn my keep from childhood."

Whatever woulds that the family had inflicted still bruised and cut something deep. But where people like Jakob lacked the capacity to comfort, they made up for in the ability to survive. How many people had she passed had been eaten up by the exercise of power within the castle walls?

"If my treason is what you were worried about," she said, "I would've fought my way out a long time ago."

"That may be idea, but I live under no such illusions of the world, Miss Corrin." His voice was even-paced, as if they were simply disagreeing over the best color tablecloth for a place setting. "You've made no illusions of your loyalty to your truth. What matters to me, though, is if and when that crosses paths with King Garon's children. And, if I may add, your best bet at breaking the cycle that this Kingdom has fought to preserve."

The butler had honed skills of observation that Corrin had found alarming. At the very least, he wasn't privy to one other reason that she stayed within the courts.

"Alright," hedged Corrin, after some silence. She didn't like it, but they did have more in common than any of the castle's other denizens.

"And what's more, you've some affection for him," added Jakob. "I've also seen the way that you look at the Young Master when he practices the sword. I must say, that's a sentiment that I didn't quite expect."

Corrin's eyes flashed with anger, and in an instant her hairband went flying towards towards him. As she had never been a proficient user of throwing projectiles as Nohr's maids, it landed pathetically on the stone tiles, cracking in two.

"I'll have this mended and sent back to your chambers by this evening," was Jakob's last comment before he snidely stepped back into whatever routines footmen stuck to.

"Please leave me alone, or there's going to be more than one thing that needs mending." Corrin said quickly, leaving the chambers of the tapestry room without meeting his gaze. As the door shut, she noticed that something had changed about it. A quick glance suggested that from the sound of the butler's laughter, he had efficiently scooped the brass-and-metal missile up and darted off elsewhere.

Blessedly alone, She closed her eyes and brushed her fingers against the thread, letting the stories seep into her in silence. It brought no comfort, but it was the past that she would carry with her, regardless of what lay ahead.

"When did you decide you wanted to play?" Corrin asked. The grove of dark trees was empty, save for her and Nohr's youngest princess, who stood in the grove with a music stand of songs.

"I wanted to make music that made my brothers and sisters happy." Elise lowered the bow from the violin's strings and set it into a velvet-lined case. "There's a princess in another kingdom, Hoshido, that wants to listen. She's going to be visiting to showcase a ko…ko…to, which she's been practicing!"

"You're going to be watching, right?" Elise hugged the case like a prize, handing it off to Effie, a pink-clad knight and her closest friend.

"My dear sweet sister, I wouldn't miss it for the world." Camilla reached over and proudly plucked a few falling leaves from the younger girl's head. "Look at you, playing the diplomat already. You'll be traveling the realm at father's orders at no time."

"What are festivals like here? Is music important?" Corrin's ears perked up at the notion of the capitol city, bustling with activity. That meant a better chance to find the songstress that the king had described.

"Music brings people together. It tells stories, and lets us understand each other," beamed Elise. "You don't have to know what it means right away, but once you start thinking about it, you can't help but feel." She tapped her finger against the air in an invisible beat.

"I don't see the appeal," muttered a girl her age with slate-gray hair. "Festivals mean crowds, and crowds mean targets." She spoke with a deadpan voice stood at an even stiffer stance than Corrin and wore assassin-black wyvern armor with bracers covered in spikes. How had someone like Camilla, who flirted, charmed, and wove her way throughout the court, earned the loyalty of someone like Beruka? Was that what people thought when they looked at her on guard duty?

Then again, there were few similarities between her and Xander, aside from their respectively reserved natures and the sliver of trust that they had earned of each other. Trust, and one occasion where, exhausted from a training session, he had used the front of his shirt to mop sweat off his face. It was likely then that Jakob had gotten his suspicious observation, and Corrin resolved to never be that careless again.

"Your face is all flushed, dear. Have you come down with something?" Camilla asked.

That was a second instance of carelessness.

"I'm fine. It's nothing. Nothing at all." Her voice came out faster than she'd liked. And higher pitched, as well.

"What if it's about a BOY?" Elise squealed. "Or a GIRL?" She bounced from foot to foot in excitement.

Of course, thought Corrin. She should have left it to the artist in the Nohrian royal family to be the romantic, as well.

"That's not necessarily true," Effie interrupted. "I get like that if I haven't eaten for a while. In fact…" If Corrin was interested in her, she would have shown affection right then and there for the knight for providing a sound distraction.

"That's exactly what I'm thinking. Let's take a trip to the kitchens and never speak of this again." Shaking her head, she turned on her heel and walked from the courtyard back into the castle's corridors.


	7. Overture

With an acrobatic leap, Corrin sent a strike that aimed at cracking a soldier's helm and struck true, knocking Xander back several feet. He staggered to stand, only to find that her weapon was pointed at his throat. Holding his hands back in surprise, he dropped his own blade in concession.

"I did it!" She beamed. "That's five wins for you, and five for me!" The results of that morning's sparring session were something to crow about, as he had started to fight her from horseback. Despite the bruises she had earned, Corrin was certain enough to take on an army of knights one at a time, prophecy-be-damned.

The blue glow of Elise's healing staff passed over her hands, sapping the exhaustion and calluses and cuts that sparring had done from her limbs. Looking over to where Jakob worked on Xander, Corrin's face fell. A distant, sullen expression had fallen over him as he shifted uncomfortably. He had been in a surly mood all week, excusing himself from meals early and pacing the gardens, corridors and streets of Windmire, thinking to himself. When Corrin walked beside him, his gaze seemed to stare straight through her.

As the servant drew away and Elise sped off to her magic lessons, she plucked two apples from a basket she had brought out that morning, sitting besides him.

"What's wrong?" She asked. The tingling, numbing effect of the healing spell would offset tiredness, but only for a little while. Pulling out a pocketknife, Corrin began to slice the apple into neat quarters. "You've thrown two or three matches that I thought you'd win."

"Forgive me. My thoughts were elsewhere." After inspecting the apple for spots, Xander took a bite out of the fruit, chewing absently.

She gestured for him to continue speaking.

"Tell me," asked Xander. "What do you fear the most, Corrin?" He took the knife from her and halved the apple, tossing it to the horse that sat behind him. Delighted, the warhorse began to noisily crunch at the unexpected treat, snapping up within seconds.

She hesitated. "What kind of answer do you expect, Milord?" Her speech, as much as she tried to check it against what Jakob and the other retainers deemed proper, remained unrefined. Corrin squeezed her eyes shut. 'Spiders' was always a good answer. Nobody ever asked twice about a fear of spiders.

"A knight is nothing if he cannot protect," answered Xander. The words felt like a sermon from him, a belief in duty that was something akin to a higher power. "I can only hope that I can have the strength to protect you, as well. But that's no good if I don't know who you are."

"That's what made you so upset?" Corrin asked, half-laughing. "Your father didn't say anything about that in the job—"

"He wants many things, but I will have to make decisions for myself one day." He sat up a little straighter, looking, for a moment, that he possessed the same imperious confidence that his father did. She hoped that they would never be exact replicas.

"What am I afraid of," her voice was low. "Well, if I had to pick one thing, it'd be that this prophecy would take me somewhere I wouldn't want to go." She flexed her fingers, drawing them apart and closing them back into a fist. "What if this story, its past and its future, is something I don't want to hear?"

The dream of the swords came to mind. He had wanted to wield the weapon that she had seen so badly, but voicing the vision broke down something inside Corrin she couldn't quite describe. So she kept silent.

"When the time comes, you won't be alone to hear it. I promise." It was a strange sight, that a liege would pledge something to his retainer. If asked about it, Corrin was certain that she would have dismissed the whole conversation as something that had happened in her imagination. But there it was. The steadfast look in his eyes when he had laid down the sword.

It was a certainty that she had fought for, and would continue to fight for, and what she had admired of Xander from the start.

"Attendants must walk fifteen paces behind visiting dignitaries at all times." The elderly knight's voice droned on as Corrin struggled to stay awake in the servant's hall. She had recognized Gunter, a senior servant of the household, occasionally conveying messages to leadership in the outpost; at the time, she had thought nothing of it, and thought him another soldier retired to an office somewhere. But in the capitol, his word and authority were as good as the king's.

"Is this where you get it from?" She leaned over and whispered to Jakob, who was ardently taking down every single word that the knight said. Besides him was Felicia, who was also scribbling down details, albeit with a frantic look on her face. A blue-haired maid that otherwise was Felicia in duplicate sat besides them, calmly making a note occasionally but not worried in the least. There were stacks of books scrawled in a language none of them could understand and translations of them that were sent over by Castle Shirasagi protocol officers, likely upon the requests of more eager-to-please servants like Sir Gunter.

"You will show respect to Sir Gunter's words, so help me," Jakob hissed back. "I have ways of dealing with bodyguards that think they don't need to know how to properly coordinate a royal visit."

"Now, due to enthusiastic requests by both Princess Elise and Princess Sakura, a stage will be constructed in Windmire Square for a public concert. The seating available to the public will require most of the knights' attention to guard. Prince Xander has agreed to loan his person guard, Miss Corrin, to watch the Princesses prior to their entrance onto the stage. Princess Camilla's retainer will be a lookout for sky attacks." Gunter tapped at several figures scrawled onto a piece of paper.

"I'll be on the lookout for fellow…specialists, as well," drawled a voice from the back of the room. Of the guards and vassals gathered for the meeting, Corrin had the most questions about the cloaked thief with the eyepatch that sauntered into the room a good fifteen minutes late. Jakob rolled his eyes. A bow, unstrung, was slung over his thin shoulders. It was likely that he aimed better than he observed timeliness.

"Ah, right. Message from Prince Leo. If anyone happens to pick up a pretty little token that looks like this…" From the inside of his tunic, the man drew out a red-colored ribbon and dangled it over his head. "He wants to know about it. Maybe he's got evening plans I don't know about. Maybe it's somebody with nastier plans. Either way," the retainer grinned crookedly.

It took a few moments for Corrin to recall just what strategic importance the item carried, or If he was simply having fun at the awkward young prince's expense.

"The ransom notes," murmured Jakob. His expression was grave. "Of course Prince Leo would be wary of them." Though some time had passed since the incident in the swamp, Corrin had noticed that he was wary of going off to places alone, especially with Elise. Leo was never one to admit when a plan had gone awry. He adjusted strategies, and he thought of how to improve himself. But he never got over anything quite so easily.

The only human attacker that had shown their faces was an unknown outlaw armed with a bow. He left nothing behind that suggested affiliations with any of the known bandit clans roaming Nohr.

"Do you think they'll see the concert as a place to strike again?"

"Are you dense?" snapped Jakob. "That's almost a given certainty. This court is filled with people who would be better off seeing Princess Elise harmed. That's why Sir Gunter only called those that could be trusted to keep her safe. "

Corrin shot a wary look over at Niles, who was lazily but aptly picking a small gilded lockbox that was almost certainly too expensive to be one of his personal possessions. She looked back at the butler, saying nothing.

"Despite his looks, he's one of Prince Leo's capable bodyguards."

"I can't wait to see the competition he beat out," muttered Corrin.

"Maybe your father should've kidnapped *you* a dragon instead," Corrin watched as the most garishly dressed dark mage she had ever seen stalk through the central area of Windmire's main square, where knights and workmen from the castle were building a wooden platform. To the side, maids were arranging dusk-colored roses and garlands of pale pink flowers, decorations signifying friendship between the two kingdoms. Odin, the man that Niles had narrowly beat to be deemed Leo's most trusted retainer, was yelling about renaming the concert to something more befitting the occasion.

"If I can lead these two to be capable retainers, I can excel at anything father assigns me to do." Leo's voice was dry as he sipped from a teacup that Jakob proferred. "I suppose Lord Brother got off easy, getting someone like you." As always, he was a thinker that was a solid ten or fifteen steps ahead of everyone he spoke to, like the protocols that Gunter had described, but in reverse.

"What do you mean by that?" She was on edge ever since Jakob had made his thoughts known in recent memory.

"You'd never hesitate to do the right thing," Leo said, before taking a sip. "There's not that many people like you anymore, you know. I may spend a lifetime figuring out the right move. You don't. And that's admirable." He turned a few pages of a complicated-looking science text.

"Oh, I don't know about that—" She sniffed the air. "Is…is something on fire?"

"Does anyone want scones for a tea break? They're fresh from the castle ovens!" Felicia beamed. She carried a tray of burnt-looking nuggets.

"I think it shouldn't take you a lifetime to know what the right thing to do is here." Corrin said quickly. Picking up her sword-belt, she sped off with a cordial but brisk wave, and some excuse about sparring that was said quickly enough so the maid wouldn't notice.

"I'm learning as we speak." Leo picked up his things and followed suit, laughing a little once they were out of earshot.

On the third day of the new year, the Hoshidan Prince and Princess were to meet the king had arrived. Corrin reluctantly trudged towards the throne room of Castle Krakenburg, knowing full well what words would be said during what was likely an inefficiently long meeting. Next to her was Xander, who was impeccably dressed for such an early hour in black and plum-colored velvet. Mercifully, no one had thought to humiliate her with a similar garb.

"All dressed up for the ball, Milord?" She grinned.

"You've never seen me dance, and I intend to let it remain that way." Chuckling, Xander motioned to the throne room, where other courtiers and his siblings were already gathering.

The first glimpse of the Hoshidan delegation was neither the prince nor princess but a girl her age, clad in pink and white armor. Two swords, thin and curved at the end, were strapped to her belt. Her expression was half-curious, half-wary. Following her was another girl, her dark blue ponytail interlaced with braids. She held a heavy-tipped spear and looked upon the weavings of the hallway carefully, a suspicious scowl on her face.

At last, the royals entered. Standing side by side and flanked with servants, they proceeded up to the throne of the King. On the left was a boy Leo's age in seafoam green, a bow twice the size of any Corrin had seen at his side. On the right was a pink-haired girl that could easily have been one of Elise's playmates. She held no weapon, but held a stringed instrument aloft.

Even from her alcove, Corrin noticed Elise's eyes had lit up. Leo, seated besides his family, curled his fingers tight around a wooden box that she knew to be a chess set, which he had written to the boy, prince Takumi, about over the course of a year. None of them were quite so far out of childhood that their friendships couldn't be dismissed as a passing, frivolous bond.

Despite it all, Corrin felt their optomism, and saw a fragile chance of new opportunities in the air. There was an infectious feeling, to promise to protect someone. As she watched Xander greet their visitors was a renewed sense of duty, the future, despite its uncertainties, seemed to have at the very least, one anchor-point where she could find a moment's respite.


	8. Bridge

A quiet but chilling rain gently ran along the roofs of the city streets at night, where lanterns hung under the awnings of market stalls set out in Windmire's market square. Despite the thin crowds, merchants had set out their handicrafts and foodstuffs filled neat rows of square stalls, where miniature pies, cups of hot beverages with the scent of chocolate and fruit, and dolls painted with heroes from children's fairy-stories were lined up for purchase. Not even the weather could dampen the scent of grilling sausages and freshly baked pastries that wafted through the air.

"I don't mind the quiet," Camilla mused."But things were so much livelier last year," Disappointed, she sipped from a goblet of something of mulled something— Corrin wasn't certain whether it was cider or wine.

Her, Xander, and Corrin lagged behind in the small traveling party that had gone out into the city from the Castle. Somewhere stalking in the shadows were Niles and Beruka. Corrin, never one for stealth, had been banished from reconaissance work by the two former assassins, instead accompanying their lieges as they made their way through the festival market.

"I don't mind the quiet, and that's that." Corrin smiled, stretching out her limbs. She was tired of standing around in a meeting all day, understanding little and saying nothing. But the day had been an informative one. She had often accompanied Xander on missions to dispatch bandits, mercenaries, or other missions that knights were sent on at the King's request. None of their retainers spoke so freely to their lieges. And none of their lieges had said much more than assenting to whatever the nobles had commanded.

Elise had dragged Leo, Sakura, and Prince Takumi up ahead, eyes shining with excitement over what she was going to spend her pocket money on. The Hoshidan Princess' eys were aglow over the plaza filled with shops, and bounded after her new playmate without hesitation. Leo and Takumi discussed the strategy games that they had exchanged during the day.

"Oh, aren't these adorable," Camilla cooed over one vendor's table. Stopping by, Corrin noticed a row of iced cookies that resembled townspeople, soldiers, mages, and even members of the Nohrian royal family. Their features and clothing were replicated in sugar icing, and smelled faintly of lavender and lemon.

"Why is mine frowning?" Xander picked one up, and inexplicably, like clockwork, frowned. His brow furrowed in a manner identical to how the baker painted his facial features.

"Art imitates life, brother dear." Camilla laughed, tossing back her lilac curls. "I'll take two."

Corrin glanced over before beheading Xander's ginger-and-flour likeness. She prepared to offer Xander half when the chime of brass bells, tinkling against each other filled the side street where they strode. She noticed that overhead, the wyvern that looped lazily around the rainy sky focused its attention on them. Beruka, most likely. After a few moments when the bells were revealed to belong to a street entertainer, the wyvern picked up its pace once more.

"Lords and ladies, revelers and guests! Come one, come all to a tale of a lost kingdom! Dragons, blades, and romance!" The melodic voice of a man in a dancer's finely embroidered jacket and trousers, stitched in cream-white and gold and far too thin for the winter. His shout echoed as he wove his way through shoppers, scattering pink and golden flyers through the rainy air. Corrin took ahold of one of them. Her ears had perked up at the mention of dragons.

"Well, if it isn't the loveliest creature I've ever set eyes on!" The dancer had stopped in front of her just as she started to read the details of the flyer. "Those eyes, and that smile—we were destined to meet, you and I!"

Corrin wasn't smiling. The last knight that had told her to smile more went home for the day with a broken collarbone.

"Corrin, dear, do you have an admirer?" Camilla asked, a surprised look on her face.

"I…I don't know. We've never met." An assassin she could deal with with ease. This was something else entirely. Next to her, Xander visibly relaxed at the sight of her reaction towards the dancer.

"It's Laslow, my dear. Our performance will be a sight you've never seen in dance and song. Do join us." Blowing a kiss to Corrin and adding one for Camilla for good measure, the Dancer swiveled past the three wary Nohrians and ambled away away, all swaying hips and light steps.

"Well, that was…strange." She wasn't sure whether or not to take him up on his offer out of curiosity or to simply have closure that the man was completely out of his mind.

"I agree," The man's behavior cut short the already-clipped words of the crown prince, who was peering off to the side of the street. It was a bout of irrationality that she hadn't thought possible with him.

"Still, this could be our chance at finding that Songstress! Wouldn't that be just the thing, to find what your father's taked you with? I—" Her throat caught as she felt for her dragonstone, finding the string around her neck suddenly empty.

"I'll be right back," Corrin's words almost came out with a snarl as she drew her sword in a flash. The sound of bells and the quiet rain were the only thing that was audible as the night wound down, the few shoppers and revelers turning back towards houses or inns. Following where she thought the dancer had went, she sped off into the streets.

She had never spent a moment apart from her dragonstone. For years and years, it had never left her side, even in detention, captivity, grueling trainings or the cruelest summers and winters. Just like that, the young dancer had pried it from her without a moment's notice. Spikes of panic shot through Corrin as she shoved past Xander, who protested at the sudden decision of his retainer to push him aside.

"What's going on?" He asked.

"My dragonstone, he took it!" She shouted back. "I'm going after him!"

"I'll go with you. He could be dangerous." Xander looked over at Camilla. "Have Beruka get help!" With a curt nod, the princess looked to the sky, placed two black-gloved fingers to her lips, and whistled sharply.

At last, Corrin came upon a complex of houses, wreathed in ivy and sparsely populated. A few lit lanterns were visible and some Nohrian-crested banners hung about here and there, but many windows were dark and empty.

Almost immedaitely, she saw the flash of blue and held out her hands, catching the dragonstone cupped between her palms. It warmed to her touch immediately as she stood, bewildered and alone. Sword in one hand and dragonstone in the other, Corrin braced herself for what she would run into next.

A dancer clad in a white beribboned dress moved across the courtyard. As she stepped in tune to a song only she could hear, drops of rain scattered away from her, jewel-bright and glistening even in the absence of moonlight. In her hands was a plain brass lance that she gestured, conducting water as if they were musical notes, coaxing rain away from the square space of the courtyard. Glowing around her neck was a necklace of gold and blue. Corrin heard the soft, subtle of a stringed instrument, a lyre plucked by the same young man that had flirted and passed out flyers on the streets earlier. His expression was somberer now, a devotee at the temple that worshipped the song that its priestess was about to perform.

The songstress' voice was clear as the dark skies in the springtime. Its tune was one that struck at some memory, fuzzy yet familiar, in the recesses of Corrin's mind. The source of the ripple of the tapestry was now clear to her.

In Mists of Dusk

A sword of born of tales

Will choose a warrior true and fair to wield

Its shining teeth, and fangs that never yield

Sing with me a Song of Memories and pride

The queen's weapon walks by your side;

Ancient kingdom of your birth

Will bear Countless Trials

And the test of true Worth

The singer's eyes flashed open, wide and golden. They stood face to face in silence for a moment. Corrin strung her dragonstone so that it sat safely around her neck once more, then pointed her blade at the unknown girl and her friend, the thief.

The slightest of smiles flickered across her face, as subtle as ripples across a pond.

"Ah, Corrin, I've been looking for you for quite some time."


	9. Fangs Bared

Xander never considered himself to be someone that was well-attuned to the magical arts. Yet almost immediately, he noticed that the songstress that his father had asked them to find was surrounded by it. She shrugged the rain off from them like it was a cloak she did not care for, and stared back at Corrin directly, as if the other girl was simply late for an appointment that they had together. Her tall, elegant figure, golden eyes and pale blue hair reminded him of someone he had seen a long time ago. The fuzzy assumptions he knit together, though, were more in the real of heresay.

"Who…who are you?" His fiercest guardswoman said sluggishly, settling near a set of abandoned fruit crates. She had listened to the song in something of a trance. Even as she walked back besides him to make sure no one got to him, her thoughts likely reeled elsewhere.

"My name is Azura. I travel, and sing stories of kingdoms' triumphs and defeats." She was serene in temperament, but certain. At her side was the irritating dancer, who now palmed a blade that any swordsman worth his salt in the Nohrian army would have struggled with. Though his clothes were unorthodox, he was every bit the caliber of fighter that would go toe to toe with full-fledged knights.

"You took something very important to me," Corrin snapped. She had woken up from whatever momentary confusion, and realized just what had brought her into the courtyard.

"I know. We had to get your attention. I apologize." Azura stepped back. Her breath fogged the cold night air as she did so. Xander had thought it unnerving that she and the dancer didn't seem to mind the cold. Before they had left the castle that morning, Jakob had fussed as he gestured for other servants to outfit each of them with thick sable-lined cloaks.

"You draw great power from that stone. And there is great potential in what you can do with weapons that are not yet yours. Wouldn't you say that's right, Prince Xander?"

She glanced at him then, upon uttering the words, and he sharply inhaled. Covering his arms were calluses from training with Siegfried, which he snuck out of its before dawn training sessions to get used to the weight of thelongsword. But try as he might, its strength remained locked away to him. The steel of the blade remained cold and dull— nothing like the bright scarlet illumination that struck fear into the hearts of bordering lands.

He cleared his throat. There would be no mention of the sword until it was well and truly his.

"Lady Azura. Your talents in music have gained some reknown. My father, the King, would like for you to visit his court for an audience with him."

At the mention of King Garon, he saw her grip the lance tighter, flinching away a little from him and Corrin. There was a soft splish overhead. Turning his hand over, Xander saw that a few drops of rain had gotten through whatever shield was the girl had conjured up. In a moment, it dried and the spell was back in place. A silence and a tension that he had previously only felt before a battle fell over the four of them. Xander knew that drawing weapons would sabotage his father's commands. More importantly, it would make the answers Corrin had been searching for impossible to locate.

When had disappointing her started to compete with what his father wanted? A glance at Corrin was all it took to sway his opinion on what to do.

"Flattering," the dancer, who had introduced himself as Laslow, grinned eagerly. "Performing for a king this early in our careers. This may be the show of a lifetime."

Despite her companion's excitement, Azura still sat with her hands folded, considering the offer and in no hurry to say her part. "I've heard so much about your kingdom. It's special to receive this invitation from your king." she nodded. "Truly." The words she spoke were beautiful, but guarded. She had her own aims for Corrin to find her, and hadn't prepared for anything else.

"Just one more thing….how did you know my name?" asked Corrin.

The question likely had several answers, from the quizzical look the songstress shot back at her. None of them would be truthful. He wasn't accustomed to dealing with people reluctant to talk.

"I wouldn't be a very good storyteller if I didn't listen to tales about warriors or dragons, would I?" she beamed. "You've had the most fascinating adventures." Azura looked the other girl over, her gaze flickering over to Xander once more. She tilted her head back to the side, mouthing words silently and likely making up some sort of song as they spoke.

As they left back into the winter night once more, he remembered that outside the courtyard, it was still raining.

For a moment, always-meticulous Xander had forgotten the world that they had stepped out of. He didn't like that so many things had slipped out of his recollections just like that. People like him rummaged through drawers to find a favorite fountain pen. They practiced sword swings until they got a technique just right. And if questions arose, they pursued the answers until they couldn't.

One doubt had weighed on him since they parted ways with Azura and Laslow.

"Corrin," he said. "How much do you know about my father's wives?"

"I've never really kept track of them, since you don't visit them that often. Why?" Her brow furrowed as she watched for the skies. It hadn't seemed like a topic related to anything at all.

With an exaperated sigh, he stopped at a street corner, now dark and abandoned. "She had the same hair color and face as one of them. I can't remember what her name was, but she disappeared some years ago. I've seen a portrait of the concubine in the palace somewhere…"

"So she's your…" Corrin pointed back towards the direction of the alleyway, stopping in her tracks. Her eyes widened. "Oh. But she doesn't look like any of you. Well, it's a little hard to tell, but…"

He shook his head. "One of the reasons my mother didn't like hers was that she brought a daughter from another man into the court. But I'd have to ask father…"

Corrin shook her head, tired of the times she had to listen to hedged decisions. She had heard the king's name invoked far too many times than she cared for.

"You could have asked her." She snapped. " But you can't simply wait for your father to make the difficult choices for you, and follow through on his orders." Turning on him, Corrin continued, not caring if it broke the rules that she was expected to follow as a retainer. If he took issue, he had options to replace her. There were so many reasons that he had given to second-guess himself, and each one of them had slowed down their process towards their missions, and her personal one of finding more about dragons.

"You overstep your boundaries." growled the prince. "You saw how she shrunk at the mention of his name. And what's more, I need to consider what's best for Nohr before making decisions. It isn't that easy—" He advanced and grabbed at her shoulder, turning her around to look at him.

She had faced down many a foe that was resilient at the end of bandit's hideouts, forts, and even the homes of treasonous nobles. But it was more difficult to look at Xander and say what she needed to say than all of them combined. "Nohr is not in flames in the event that you try to think outside the box for your first mission that isn't straight-forward." Corrin regretted the sharpness of her voice just a tad, knowing that he could very well defend himself against any petty criminals on the way back to the castle. She feared that his reticence would keep him from the sword that he so clearly wanted to wield.

"I suppose we have nothing more to say to each other on this subject, then." Was his answer. Anger flashed through his eyes. She had struck true with her criticism.

Ironically, she had ended up following Jakob's advice of staying ten steps away from her liege, but for different reasons entirely.

The songstress' words stayed with Corrin as she opened her umbrella and hurried through the completely empty market, clutching her dragonstone under her cloak for dear life. She had lost it once, and did not want to relive the panic for a second. Following her was what she presumed to be an extremely incensed Xander.

She pursued silence and solitude, but looked back every so often to make sure that Xander wasn't dead in an alleyway. He was, after all, still the difference between a night's rest back in her room and a night back Ihe cells of a dungeon Already the words that had been exchanged made her want to plunge her head into her hands. Her steps felt like her boots were lined with lead.

The shadow of a hooded, bow-wielding thief rounded the corners. Tired from the evening, she looked over with a small wave at someone she was certain was Niles. He waved from an entrance to the castle that remained unlocked, used more often by messengers and spies than by the king's children. But this late in the night, people asked questions if Xander took a more standard entrance back into Castle Krakenburg.

"Rough night?" The eyepatch-clad thief grinned, cracking his knuckles as he rose from his perch by the door. "I've been watching you two from a distance and I see the makings of a spat. And not even a good and messy one, at that."

"Shove it," Corrin muttered. Her cloak snapped as she turned the corner without making eye contact.

Before she turned back out of earshot, she heard the low whistle of the thief and a clap on Xander's shoulder. "That," said Niles, who despite many verbal warnings, never heeded social boundaries or rank, "is going to take you some time to undo."


	10. Distance

"You look positively atrocious, dear." Camilla reached over and smoothed the hairband that had fallen across Corrin's eyes. "Did you forget the time last night?"

Corrin had no answer to the question, save to untangle the mess that her cloak had become and attempt in vain to shake the sleep from her eyes. "No. It's complicated. But rest assured, I kept Xander safe." No physical harm came to him, anyways. There was the small lie in her words, but she doubted that he was one to complain to Camilla about his feelings.

They had passed each other in stony silence that morning. It stung a little to see him pick Jakob as a sparring partner, but that was to be expected. Both of them needed as much space that a prince and his guard could get, under their specific circumstances.

"So how was the rest of your night?" Corrin asked briskly. She had noticed that Camilla enjoyed sharing her thoughts, and did so easily. As long as the conversation didn't turn to Xander, things could be fine if only for the course of one morning.

"Oh, I caught up with my adorable little brother and sister. You can see that it's obvious they're enjoying having new friends. They don't have the easiest of lives, because of father's expectations." Why was it, thought Corrin, that everything that she avoided bringing up emerged again in some form or another? She mumbled something resembling assent and took her position behind Xander. If he had noticed her arrival, he said nothing about it.

A visibly exhausted Jakob, albeit from preparations and an impromptu request for sparring practice, nestled himself next to Corrin along the back wall of the booth. "If I fall asleep during this, nudge me awake. I can't afford to have people speak badly of our liege." His voice was gruff. It had seemed that neither of the prince's retainers were in good spirits that morning. She was thankful that the King and his concubines, along with the loathsome sorceror, were seated in their own separate box.

All eyes turned to the stage, including, Corrin noted, the many guards positioned in uniform and in disguise throughout the plaza. She exchanged looks with Beruka. Then she looked at Effie, Elise's retainer, who was in plainclothes and heartily chewing on a drumstick. Odin, who usually guarded Leo, was perched over a watchtower. He narrowed his eyes as he swerved from left to right, eager to play lookout with as much fervor as he did just about anything in life.

The sound of polite but cheery applause drew Corrin's attention from her check of the other bodyguards of the Nohrian royal family. She watched the stage as the princesses finally walked out.

Elise gave a small but excited wave as she bounded out on to the stage, having swapped her troubador's uniform for a simple black gown with a shrug. In her satin-gloved hands were a finely carved violin and a bow of rosewood. Next to her was Princess Sakura, who wore a robe-like, dawn-colored dress embroidered with flowers and a silvery elaborate hairpin. A long, stringed instrument called a coto had been set out on the stage, where she knelt down and set her fingers upon the strings. Sakura glanced over at Elise, who nodded and sat down at a chair that had been set out on the opposite side of the stage.

Elise played out the first low notes of the duet, drawing out the crisp cold air of Nohr's winter days. Sakura plucked in the music of the koto in turn, surrounding the square in a stillness that evoked the mild, sunny climates that Hoshido was known for.

As Corrin stood and took in the music that cut through the square, she closed her eeyes and let the idea of missions, nations, swords and kings slipped away. She allowed herself to take a deep breath, and let the worries knotted up in her go. It wasn't enough to fix everything, but she didn't need to fix everything. As long as that was true for even the briefest of moments, it was enough.

Her peace was cut short by a sharp, strangled cry from above.

Corrin's eyes jolted open and she looked skyward. In the watchtower, Odin reeled backwards, clutching his arm. Piercing it was the shaft of an arrow, with a red ribbon tied just near the feathers.

"That's my tome arm!" He wailed. "I'm bleeding on the pages now!"

She rolled her eyes. Alive, annoying, and not the first priority. Odin's safety could likely be guaranteed later. What was more alarming was what it had meant— that the red-ribbon bandit had returned to Nohr's capitol city.

"Corrin!" Xander called, jumping to his feet from his chair. He pointed to the stage, where Elise and Sakura sat, unarmed and vulnerable to attacks. As spirited as ever, Nohr's youngest princess put herself in front of the quavering shrine maiden.

Mired in her presently foul mood as she was, commands to protect the royal family were something that not even Corrin could ignore. Sword in hand, she leapt from the boxes and into the rapidly scattering crowd. Arrows adorned with red ribbons that the assailant were firedoff towards bystanders to ensure that no one neared the princesses. More bandits streamed from the alleyways, cloaked and masked, wielding swords and dark mages' tomes.

"To arms, knights and soldiers of Nohr!" She heard Xander call out, drawing his sidearm— a ceremonial blade, but one that would do in a fight nonetheless. Camilla already set off running towards the stage and let out a sharp whistle. In moments, her wyvern, black as knight and menacing everyone but its mistress, swooped down and plucked her skywards, just as Corrin had seen her do dozens of times. But Camilla had a gleam in her eye that spoke nothing but relentlessness now. She brandished a spellbook in her hand, forming sigils of power and sending bolts of thunder towards the nearest pair of bandits. Leo had sped off somewhere into the crowd as well, tome in hand and followed by Prince Takumi, who drew a deadly-looking bow that glowed with an otherworldy energy.

Following Xander, Corrin flanked the sides of the area of the Crown Prince's advance, cutting down men that thought him to be an idle target. Seeing a volley of arrows shot his way, she gripped her dragonstone, feeling its familiar energies wash over her. Screams erupted from the civilians, and a few soldiers looked away as she continued to charge through men that stood in her way.

"Go. Get to them first!" Xander turned around, as a bandit opposite him crumpled, lifeless into ths square. There was no time, though. Both of them knew it. She had talked so much about choices, but when it came down to it, it wasn't any easier to make a split-second decision, even if she hadn't had a throne to inherit.

She heard the screams of the two princesses. Something was attacking them, as well. Corrin glanced between her two choices. She would have to sacrifice the safety of her liege, or the two girls who had strove to forge peace where generations before them had struggled to do so.

There was nothing for her to do, if there was no time.

 _"Sing with me a Song of Memories and pride, the queen's weapon walks by your side…."_

Even in the din of battle, the voice reached her ears as if it only spanned the length of several footsteps. The notes and lyrics seemed to rattle through Corrin's skin and flesh, sinking into her nerves themselves. Droplets of water swirled around her, evoking something within the dragonstone's magic. For a brief moment, Corrin's heart pulsed with the certainty that there were infinite possibilities.

She caught a glimpse of a flutter of a white dress and blue, flowing hair. Of course, thought Corrin. The songstress had decided to, for whatever reason, lend a hand in her time of need.

With newfound swiftness from the song, she braced her hind-legs and leapt towards the stage, gliding into position on her wings. As Corrin landed, two arrows, clearly meant for the princesses, glanced off her. She gored through one and clawed at two more fighters that had leapt for them.

She heard Sakura's scream of alarm.

"It's okay! She protects my big brother!" Elise exclaimed. "Follow me!"

"Get to safety, both of you!" Her voice, strained and watery as it was, was recognizeable. With a confused but determined nod, Sakura followed Elise, who held her hand as she maneuvered down the steps of the stage.

"I got the last of them!" She heard the Hoshidan prince exclaim from far away. But there wasn't time to rest. As her claws became feet once more, Corrin ran after Elise's retreating form. Disaster had struck, and time was of the essence in finding whoever targeted the king's family.

By the time she had looked back towards where Azura had stood, the dancer was gone once again.

Shocked from the events of the day, the King had called his children and the Hoshidans to a private dinner that evening, after a long afternoon of meetings with his council. With time on her hands and space away from Xander, Corrin found herself in her chambers, tossing her dragonstone and catching it again. She lay face-up on her bed, restless despite the fact that she had seen a day's worth of live combat in protecting a family that she had an increasing desire to just get away from. If the Hoshidans took the day's events as hostile, there would be hell to pay in staying in Nohr, regardless.

There was a knock on her door, startling her from tallying up a list of safe topics to discuss the next time she and Xander were in the same room. She had settled on swords, the weather, and horses, and was busily working on a fourth entry.

"Miss Corrin," The elderly knight Gunter's voice cracked like the sharp branch of an aging tree. He stood tall and perfectly postured, a trait only made more obvious by the instances where he corrected younger servants and retainers. "Do you have a moment? I require a bit of assistance this evening."

"Are we at war with Hoshido now?" She asked.

"No," the older man said flatly. "The prince and princess were proud to help fend off the bandits. Theirs is also a family skilled in the combat arts, and as stubborn and difficult to kill as our own royal household."

"Am I being removed from my appointment?"

"No….Where are you getting these ludicrous ideas? The King was pleased with your quick thinking today. You defended several of his children in the face of a sudden bandit attack."

She bit back words about the quick thinking not being entirely her intution at work. Summoning every bit of smarm that Jakob had demonstrated, she stood up straighter. "I am pleased to protect the royal family, Sir Gunter. Is that not the greatest honor a retainer could have?"

"I had hoped to acquire your assistance in identifying the weapon that was used by the bandits today." Gunter spoke with a forthrightness that suggested he was done playing games about it. "Are you willing to assist, or not?"

Corrin followed Gunter into a chamber filled with retainers, Hoshidan and Nohrian alike. At the center of the table was a navy-haired girl that had worn a scowl on her face on the first day that the delegation had entered their kingdom. She peered at an array of ribbons laid out onto a table.

"We've never worked with these in my shop, so they're not Hoshidan in origin," said the girl. "But they're not Nohrian, or the fashions of any other lands that I can pin down either." The detailing on the ribbons, even when worn from battle, was intricate.

"None of my contacts are coughing up anything on this," shrugged Niles. "Face it, folks. We're at a dead end on this."

"I've let down Prince Leo!" wailed Odin. "I must train harder so that arrows cannot pierce me. The great Odin will rain hellfire on his foes before they can even blink!"

Corrin turned back to Gunter. "Is _he_ getting removed from his appointment?"

"I should have left you in your room," Gunter muttered under his breath, likely thinking that Corrin didn't have good enough hearing to notice. But dragons were talented in many unexpected ways, and she wasn't about to let the veteran knight know all of them. Settling down into a seat, she watched as he called the meeting to order to properly sum up what the knights had found in the aftermath of the day's skirmish.


	11. A Prince's Determination

Brittleness descended upon the residents, royal and otherwise, of Castle Krakenburg in the depths of winter. The cold snap that followed the departure of the Hoshidans had taken two of the king's prized horses' in the course of one night. He fell into an unpleasant mood, which spread throughout his family, servants, and courtiers. Only the two maids of the Ice Tribe were in good spirits, coasting through their tasks like the cold had meant nothing.

"It's nothing, really. We've always had to live near ice and snow. So Flora and I would come up with activities to try to pass the time." Despite her clumsiness, Felicia was a woman that could cheer herself up easily. Corrin envied that trait, and wished that she had the optimism to replicate it.

"Like… knife-throwing?"

"I'm sensing some judgment from you towards our fighting style. This is completely unnecessary-" cut in a familiar and all-too-snide voice.

"Jakob," Flora raised a hand. "Perhaps there is a better way to explain your duties than ranting." She finished stacking sandwiches together on a tea tray, and balanced it carefully onto a cart.

"We are specialists in projectiles because servants handle the necessities that their masters do not wish to undertake. In a way, you could say our clans shares more skills with outlaws than we may care to admit." The blue-haired woman explained the facts serenely, as if she was helping Corrin pick out a proper china pattern. Jakob made a small noise of protest, but was cut silent by a spectacularly withering look from Flora that caused him to sidestep the both of them and start polishing a nearby vase just to avoid eye contact.

"What is a king but a bandit that's been very successful?" Corrin shrugged. "I had a question, though." She held up the arrow that Gunter had lent her from the meeting several weeks ago. Since the day of the attack, Corrin had been making her way throughout Windmire alongside Gunter and Niles, looking into clues on the red-ribbon bandit's identity and whereabouts.

"This fabric…" Flora paused for a second. "It's coated in something— a solution of wax, perhaps?" She flicked at the material slightly. "We use that to polish floors. It helps resist water and mildew. " Smiling slightly at the resolved question, she handed the ribbon back to Corrin.

The maid's observation had yielded far more than several knights examining the arrow for days on end.

"I should have asked your opinion of this in the first place." She grinned. "Maybe the king's officials should consult people like you and Jakob more often."

"Whatever it takes to protect our charges," Flora wiped the wax from her hands on her apron. "Wouldn't you say the same about your liege as well?" Her eyes searched Corrin's, looking for any deviation but assent. As helpful as she was, Corrin realized that her comment about kings and bandits had distanced her from the maid a little.

But as much as Corrin marched under his banner, she felt nothing towards Garon, who was distant, aloof, and almost always shut away with his courtiers and pack of hyena-like retainers. Her ties to the kingdom lay with Garon's children. And how that sort of friendship proceeded, especially with the king's eldest son, was a far thornier question.

Corrin had noticed Xander carrying a book each time they crossed paths in training, during meals, and in-between duties and responsibilities assigned by the king. It was a dark green traveler's guide that was popular among soldiers and merchants, but she could never get close enough to figure out the title or any of the book's contents. She had neither the grace, or silence that the castle's servants had for appearing and reappearing in the shadows of the castle. There was, of course, the option of working up enough nerve to speak to him again. But where would they go from there?

Most of her verbal exchanges with the prince were short, curt, and fulfilled the bare minimum of courtesy. The words and their conversations now felt rote, automatic, and lifeless— "Good morning"; "Let's get going"; "I'll see you there." In the previous months, she would have found him to talk about style of swordfighting that she had seen to take down a heavily-armored knight, or work to find a suitable place to take Camilla and Elise out to a dinner in the city.

She never realized just how much she confided in him until anger had broken whatever friendship they had to pieces.

Whispers among Nohr's courtiers had become more and more unpleasant when it came to Xander. Sparring still came easily to her even as their schedules came together again in early morning spent in the bone-chilling courtyard. While there, the strikes of swords could say easily what angry words could not. Though Siegfried's powers remained stubbornly sealed away and its surface as black and featureless as ever, the prince was determined to earn its confidence. Even hours after practice ended she could see him sitting in the courtyard, the sheathed sword sitting across his lap, studying what it was that made the sword work.

Whatever the king thought of his eldest son's worth, there was one trait where he had exceeeded every knight, soldier, and courtier Corrin had known— patience.

"I wonder when the king's going to need him to demonstrate what Siegfried could do," she heard one noble whisper to another.

"If he can't prove himself, perhaps Lord Leo will take his place as heir. Mm, that would knock him down a few pegs, wouldn't it?" Xander was far too proud to react to such comments, but his gait was more brisk and his posture stiff and uncomfortable as he discussed courtly matters with people that likely hated his guts.

There was a reason she had chosen her friendships among retainers, soldiers, and the royal family itself. Courtiers were a fickle lot throughout Nohr, regardless of how fair or foul the weather outside had gotten. Worst of all was the fact that certain ill-tempered sorcerers rocketed through their ranks, weaving gossip just as easily as he did spells.

Despite her silences during the days that passed, Corrin wanted to say a great deal to Xander. Her confidence that he was capable of meeting whatever test Siegfried had posed, that many of his critics had never had a sword, spear or axe pointed at them in their entire silk-wrapped lives. Corrin's anger towards him had been in earnest, but it hadn't stopped a knot of regret forming in her throat just before she could say anything to try to reach out to him.

She was never afraid to speak her mind before. Not around him, and certainly not around anyone else. Court was something of a battlefield in itself, and she, an outsider through the stone around her neck and her foreign appearance, was prepared to survived in it. Corrin had feared nothing.

Until now.

It wouldn't kill her to see glance towards her and look away, making the distance between them as gone for good. But it would hurt her. It had hurt, sending a tightening sensation to her chest and throat, right at the base of where the dragonstone rested. She could survive to do what she had always done to spar, to protect, and to mull over what would come next.

Words they could exchange that pertained to training and where he had to go were easy. Her emotions were far trickier. But she was never one not to try.

"What's that book you've been reading?" Corrin asked, attempting valiantly not to notice how her words almost caught in her throat. She fervently prayed to whatever higher power listened to dragons to make it so that his response didn't matter. It was fine. As long as she could strike down foes with sword or dragonstone, they were fine.

He opened the book to a marked page of a map showing a treacherous-looking mountain range. At the top of the peak was a building, square and tall. "When the snow begins to thaw," answered Xander, "We seek out the Sage. I intend to find out for myself whether or not his words have worth." A shadow passed over his face at the mention of the magician, once again. He was a man never raised to lie properly, and Corrin knew it.

"You don't seem the type to believe in prophecies." He had shrunk away from every word Azura had ever sung, and every mention of the notion of wielding the longsword at his side seemed to cut into Xander like the slim blades of knives.

"I still don't," was the reply. "But I made a promise some time ago, and I don't intend to break that, no matter how poorly you think of me. Or how I choose to heed my father's commands." He looked off into the distance. The question of that still sat unsettled between the two of them.

But then his expression shifted completely. Corrin had always admired the determination with which Xander could raise a sword up like a banner, before sending it crashing towards his opponent. She saw the same certainty in his gaze, and it meant everything.

"Your trust was a precious thing to earn." continued the prince. "And as long as I can have you fight by my side, I want to make sure that we can trust each other."

"That," she found herself saying. "Is something that I never doubted for a second." What had it meant, that she still could understand him despite her anger? Smiling, Corrin looked up and nodded.

"I'll visit the Sage with you. If there's anything he has to say to you, I'll be with you, every step of the way." Earnestness was an exhausting feat for many people she spoke with. But for him, it came as naturally as drawing a sword or taking the first steps out of her room in the morning. She closed her fingers over his and squeezed his hands for the briefest of moments. It was a gesture of commitment to the quest, but Corrin liked to lie to herself about many things, including the fact that she hadn't felt a jolt run through her as he clasped her hands and she felt the warm pulse of his wrist and fingertips.

It had dawned on Corrin that out of everyone in the castle, Xander had the unique ability to determine whether or not she was happy in the course of a few kind words. And it unnerved Corrin all the more to realize that whatever vulnerabilities he had oppened the moment he had laid down his sword had only gotten stronger over the course of the years. It was a weakness, and one that she would walk straight into a grave before revealing to anyone— least of all, to him.


	12. Waterlogged Depths

Clear, slow bubbles of air billowed out from Corrin's mouth as she sank into the depths of a lake, staring helplessly as the daylight from above faded away. She clutched at her throat, but not a single sound came out.

Corrin was dreaming again, but instead of vague visions of Xander on a battlefield, the blade Siegfried in hand, she was alone and the vision crystal clear. The currents of the lake moved around her, blanketing her in a cloak of moving water.

Then there was the all-too-familiar glint of light at her throat, and a surge of power through her veins. The familiar sheath of scales and carapace slid over her arms and legs. Water rushed through Corrin's draconic mouth as easily as air did on land. She glanced around her and felt her horns and wings stretch out from her head and sides.

With all the grace of an amphibious but sluggish goat, she pawed her way through the water and towards where something shone far below. Crumbled slabs of stone and suspended columns from a building sunk slowly into the water besides her. From the looks of them, they framed the ruins of something submerged a very long time ago. Below that was a sight even more remarkable, and impossible, if Corrin had been asked about it in the waking world.

The view above rippled with the watery surface of any lake or pond. The sunlight, bright and piercing, shone down into the dreamscape. But below, chunks of sand had been ripped away from the depths of the lake, as if the lakebed itself had been set into a gigantic hourglass or fountain. Water dripped out of it slowly, as if the whole dreamscape was a fountain set in motion by illusioniss and mechanists of arcane origin.

Sitting at the center of a pile of sand where the water hadn't fallen away, frozen in motion, was something small, blue, and shining.

In a split second, Corrin decided to go after the object. She flexed her back legs and propelled herself downwards through the water with a jet of bubbles. It took some time getting used to, but the currents worked with her as time passed. There were splashes of water as she clawed or stomped her way through battle, after all. It wasn't a stretch to think that she had no affinity for bodies of water as well.

As Corrin neared the bottom of the lake, the object became a little clearer. Scattered around it were links of fine, golden chain— broken, but arranged so that anyone could see that it once resembled a necklace. At the bottom, nsetled neatly in the sand, was a pendant, oblong and set in gold.

Corrin had seen the pendant once before, on the young woman that had promised answers to questions that she had long had about her kingdom. There had been so much lost to her over the course of years erased by something she could not name. Seeing Azura sing in the courtyard had promised answers, ones that Corrin would receive sooner or later. She couldn't wait.

But if the songs had meant anything, perhaps the pendant had hidden clues as well.

Reaching out, Corrin grasped the underside of the pendant and was surprised that her human hands had reformed. In peering into the bright polished surface of the bronze, she saw that the draconic shape that she sometimes took had disappeared, rippling away as if the waters had conjured them as a mirage.

The blue gleam of the pendant glowed so bright that her eyes hurt. Then, it transformed. In her hands was the blade that shone like the sun. It had a wicked point to it and hummed with a silent energy that the water of the lake seemed attuned to.

Corrin was interrupted in her appraisal of the weapon by the sound of a dull splash. Something large and shadowy descended from above, falling much faster than the columns and ruins of a building. She lunged upwards once more, sword still in hand but holding her arms out to catch whoever it was that fell towards her.

Though his face was closed, Xander's features resembled a man in a slumbering state that was far from peaceful. As his armor pulled him further down into the water, she saw thin trails of blood course fround wounds inflicted freshly. Corrin grabbed at him, feeling her heart pound with worry. This couldn't happen. She wouldn't let it happen.

There were too many things that she had wanted to tell Xander, and far too many things she wanted to know about him in return. Though Corrin knew she was dreaming, the fact of the matter was that he prepared himself to do before giving up on a what he idealized including charging right into the thick of battles that he didn't quite understand with no fear of death. Even here, he was frustrated but not afraid, and she hated him a little for it.

Following their eldest brother, three other figures had been cast into the lake in quick succession. Even from the distance she saw the points of Leo's collar, Elise's braided locks, and Camilla's purple tresses on the bodies that had similarly fell victim to the monstrous dreamscape. The water, once clear and blue, was quickly being stained bright scarlet. Though she tried valiantly to catch all four Nohrians, the other three bodies fell away and sunk down into the sand or feell through the lake into the clouds, engulfed either way by the watery ruins.

What good did it do to possess power if she couldn't succeed at protecting those that had shown her kindness? The world around her had shown a capacity to fall apart at alarming speeds, perpetrated by nobles and bandits and the kings of a past Nohr that she had never seen.

In the darkness, Nohr's royals, their retainers, and likely many ordinary people had managed to survive.

She awoke with an anguished roar that resounded throughout the room, rattling the stones of the walls. Corrin sprawled to her feet, knowing full well that she was in no shape to go outside. She took several deep breaths and watched as the powers of the dragonstone waned. Her hands shrunk back to their normal size, and she used her recently recovered fingers to reach for a glass of water on her nightstand. As she did, her foot struck something heavy and metallic. The lake and the dead Nohrian prince she held in her arms were gone, as was the pendant. But in their place as a sudden and recent reminder of what the world had told her was an item that that shone, even in the dull, dimly lit bedroom.

She held the object closer to the closest torch.

In Corrin's hands was a rusted, aged sword with a handle and design the likes of which she had never seen before, prior to it appearing in the world of the lake and battlefield, whatever sort of place it was. Even in her tired, shocked state, she knew that it likely could shine bright gold again, with the right care and attention.

"Unfortunately for you, sword, I am fresh out of both of those things. See you tomorrow." With no fanfare whatsoever, she chucked the sacred relic to the floor with an uncerimonious _clang_ and went back to bed.

If the future was terrifying, she would face it first thing after getting a night of dreamless sleep.


	13. An Unbroken Curse

Nohr's king mostly allowed his children to playact as soldiers and left them to their own devices. However, Garon was a shrewd man, and kept eyes and ears on alert throughout his castle. While his sons and daughters were nothing but attentive and dutiful, his kingdom had a history of kings and queens deposed by heirs and children who were not.

He had assigned his eldest son two missions— to find a songstress known for prophecies, and to unlock the secrets of a sword passed down through their family. Both were meant to test his weaknesses— his apprehensiveness towards the unknown, and his anxiety towards taking risks. Progress had been scant on both missions, if its criteria were solely decided based on the whims of his retainers and ministers. Much to his chagrin, Garon had received reports that confidence among the nobles were waning. But time still remained for Xander to prove himself yet.

One morning, he had received note that Xander had disappeared from the court entirely. A mage had seen it in her scrying tools, and had burst into a meeting of the king and a group of Nohrian nobles.

"You dare—" growled Hans, the king's enforcer. He held up a greataxe and was ready to ensure she walked out without a head, or at the very least missing a limb.

"Hold," Garon held up his hand. "Witch, state your name and your purpose."

"My name is Nyx, your Majesty." answered the voice of a young girl, albeit in a more even-tempered than any of the children he had seen in the court. "I paid in magic and in years for a gift of prophecy and magical sight, and serve as a teacher in the royal magic academy."

Mages came and went from the castle, and conferred frequently with the guards to better reinforce its defenses from time to time. This one had information that differed from the usual reports about shields to ward off hexes or fireballs.

"I do not interrupt his Majesty without reason. But he has departed to seek the wisdom of the Rainbow Sage," continued the mage. "He and his companions will unlock a power that will unlock something deep within Nohr's past. Please take care in how you receive visitors to the Castle."

"Very well. We will heed this prediction." With a nod, the king dismissed the the seer. As much as he was quick to discipline vassals that wasted his time, it seemed that the girl— or cursed woman, if she told the truth— was not one that had done so.

As the prophetess sped off back into the shadows, pleased with her work, he waved off the rest of the attendees of the meeting. An imperious glance at the rest of the nobles ensured that they preoccupy themselves with packing their things away and leaving him at peace.

"Dodging your orders and escaping. Surely this is a sign of treason," muttered Iago the sorcerer. He cast a disapproving glance downwards towards the castle gates. "I think it best if we send knights to apprehehnd his little band and ensure that he knows his place." Iago's words were punctuated with a menacing grin, which showed as much ambition as it did his detachment from the empathy that weighed down less tenacious courtiers.

"I think not, Iago." the King shook his head. "He is merely finally starting to apply himself. If you remember, it was I that issued him a mission that required a journey away from the kingdom." A word from him was usually enough to silence the man, who spoke boldly but never in defiance of his king.

Garon walked the sorcerer away from the throne room, picking up the papers of their just-concluded meeting. "This trial will have him ascend to the throne or be lowered into a grave in pieces."He closed his eyes in thought.

"I cannot keep gifting him what he needs to be strong." Their walk took them into the tapestry hall, where the threads of Nohr's history gleamed against the fine blue weavings. "After all, living weapons are unpredictable."

"Wiser words have never been spoken," Iago assented."

In the wall hanging that had always been blank was a new gold-threaded, its design as old as the other ones but showing something impossible to the time the other tapestry images had been completed. The new tapestry shoewed a young woman, her hair pinned in a veil and billowing to her ankles like a cape, wielding an ornate lance. She pointed her weapon at the dark mage, wyvern rider and great knight that had been previously threaded into. At her side, reared back to strike, was the form of a dragon crouched on four legs.

"Oh, but isn't this an interesting change of events?" The mage loomed over the new image, curiosity ablaze in his eyes. "A possible change of heart in the prince's protector."

"Iago, you truly earn your worth as an advisor," King Garon replied dryly. But the artifact had never changed to show something that wasn't likely to be of importance in the days to come. He steeled himself as he departed. The most surprising vision that the tapestry had revealed wasn't the dragon, but the person next to him. He thought that everything about the woman— more specifically, her mother— had been lost to time and tragedy.

The king wasn't unsettled often, but the uneasiness of the girl's determined, angry gaze was unnerving. Long after he and the conniving sorcerer departed the hall of tapestries, it followed his thoughts.

They had departed Windmire without much notice, save a note to the king left with Gunter. He, Flora, Felicia, and Elise watched as they left, with the young princess waving energetically until the small traveling party disappeared.

"Bring me back a present from the Sage!" she called, a hint of annoyance in her otherwise cheery voice. She was talked down by Camilla from joining them on their travels, despite confident assertions that she was old enough to go with them.

"These knights are so optimistic about meeting with the sage, but he turns away all but the few that are chosen…"Corrin wrinkled her nose. "Well, I suppose reaching him is a form of training in itself."

"May we all share your optimism, Corrin." Leo looked up from his study of the spellbook Brynhilder, which sat open against his saddle as his horse picked its way across the rocky terrain. "Ah, by the way, I was able to find a few answers on that blade in Nohr's libraries before we departed. There's a bit of lore about it in the histories that were passed on from a Hoshidan historian from their annals. A bit of a long read, but a rewarding one." He took a wrapped bundle from his packs and handed it over to Corrin. She set it aside pointedly, avoiding Xander's gaze as she did so, and turned to the travel guide she had borrowed from him. Bookmarks made of paper and a bit of paste had been stuck into different sections neatly by Xander and Leo.

"How many of Nohr's warriors and knights made their way up to this sanctuary?" Corrin glanced at the marked pages of the travel guide as she walked alongside Xander, who was atop his warhorse. She preferred to take the route on foot, only riding alongside a knight when she needed to.

In their traveling party were a few knights, Jakob and Leo. Camilla and Beruka followed by air, swapping places for patrols every so often. Odin and Niles, Leo's retainers and their designated night watcmen, slept in the supply wagon. Corrin thanked whatever powers made that arrangement, for it made for a mercifully silent daytime rides out from Windmire. They had gone through several of Nohr's small villages, including a small clan of Wolfskin shape-shifters that had shared a hearty meal with the travelers. Their chief, an energetic young man named Keaton, gave the two princes a few words of advice for navigating the mountains.

The dreams of the lake and the torn-up sky stayed at the back of Corrin's mind through her travels. But each time she tried to work up the nerve to talk about it, her throat seized up— not out of any emotional reaction, but a physical one that squeezed the breath from her lungs. She clutched at her neck as she took several deep breaths, the thought of mentioning the dreams escaping her mind. At the moment the notion of bringing up the dreams receded, she could inhale again.

That was a bit different. She had never entertained the thought of plainly saying what the tapestries or dreams had meant. There was a mechanism in place, apparently, to prevent it.

Drawing several ragged breaths, Corrin steadied herself and took to the back of the traveling party, where she looked down at the bundle containing the weapon that she had avoided fro so long. Finding an isolated patch of forest that remained close to where the others rested, she stole away and undid the ties to the canvas package that Leo had rewrapped.

Felicia and Flora had cleaned the blade for her as a favor the night before they departed. "Just in case I need it," she said to herself, after thanking her friends. Corrin had held the blade up just once. Its now shining golden surface and razor-sharp edge bore tiny jagged ridges that she could only see up wasn't a beautifully-crafted weapon by any means, and its design only appeared to be more obviously foreign the more she held it.

Leo's notes on the weapon called the sword the Yato, a blade said to be lost that came and went alongside its companion, a champion of Nohr that could shift from human to dragon, taking on the form of whoever the champion served.

"So you can shapeshift as well, can't you?" She said to the sword with a slight grin. "Like you have a mind of your own. How fun." Planting her feet into the earth, Corrin took a few steps and swung the sword out in a fighting stance, just to see what the weight would feel like in her hands.

It didn't matter where she was and who she fought for. As long as she wielded the Yato and thought for herself, she could make her own future.

A sword, strange and shining, was in Corrin's hand. Xander passed the scene while leading his horse back from a spring of drinking water that a fellow knight had found. He placed his hand on the mount's nose, stilling its trot back to the camp.

The determination that she fended off foes or with which Leo cast spells from his tome was not lost on Xander. Though to anyone else, he kept apace along his retainer and brother, he was stuck. It would do to rely on some mountain hermit's blessing to solve all of his problems. Perhaps such beliefs were held by people with stronger ideals, or by people who could draw strength from the crown or throne they were meant to inherit.

While Nohr's throne was all but his to lose, there wasn't nothing sacred about his feelings towards it. Looking ahead, Xander saw only a duty was created off in the distance and stayed that way. It pulled at him just as impatiently as his horse, who was now tugging at its reins. It had recognized Corrin, and was whinnying in a way most inappropriate for a crown prince's war steed.

"Oh, Xander. Is something the matter?" Corrin lowed the blade and bounded over, her steps energetic and optimistic in a manner that he envied.

"Nothing," A headache that could have been caused by the day's worth of travel, exhaustion, or the necessity of answering whatever she had bade him to lead his horse back to camp. "What sort of weapon is that?" He found himself asking. The sword was too ostentatious for any knight to wield. Then again, she had never been a subtle fighter, preferring to strike fast and leave foes reeling.

Corrin's laugh was uneasy, and hid more than it conveyed. "Oh, you wouldn't believe me if I told you." The sword was back at her belt as she finished her exercises and stretched her arms out like a cat that had found its perfect sunbeam.

"Try."

She rolled her eyes, which, had he been in a worse mood Xander would have said was most unbecoming of a retainer. "Strictly Half-dragon business, I'm afraid."

"I command you to tell me about the sword." His patience was thin. She tended to deflect when something pressing was on her mind. Once before, he had ran away, and Xander tended to not repeat mistakes.

"Years of not pulling rank, and now you start." Her laugh this time was satisfied, mocking and asking questions of him at once. Xander had never expected anything less.

"Very well. I am under some kind of—" She gestured around her head, mimicking poorly the motions of a dark mage in the midst of casting a hex. "It's impossible for me to say. "

"Well, how can it be broken, then?" Xander looked to her. If his pragmatism was useful for anything, it was steading people who were full of ideals, but needed to work out their problems more steadily. Despite Corrin's fiery optimism in their search for the sage, she was tired, looking off into the distance for longer than necessary. The sooner that she could speak clearly, the easier things would be between the two of them. And for Nohr, of course. That was obviously the most important matter at hand when everything was said and done. This he reminded himself as his pulse raced.

"I'm not s—" She began. He couldn't be sure what had gotten into the horse as it snagged the reigns, then pushed him forwards with a forceful shove. They collided and stumbled forwards a few steps into the hill-top where she had been practicing.

Heat spiked into Corrin's bloodstream and under her skin upon the realization that he was close and she was being held. She felt the rough callous of Xander's thumb reach over and trace down her cheek and jawline, a question that was nonverbal, tender but simultaneously as serious as a question that had been asked a number of times. At present, he was real, he was there and had a very good chance of being hers.

Her own decision made, Corrin leaned up and in and pressed her lips to Xander's. She felt the soft exhalation of warm breath against her and was instantly resolved to commit the sound of it to memory. There was an alertness to her nerves that she hadn't quite expected at all, jolted awake by how his fingers played at the small of her back.

"Still cursed?" A slow grin that she had never seen on him before turned her knees weak, adding to the number of things she would never confess to. Stunned, she stared up at the sky warily to make certain just how much time had passed.

"What do you think?" She heard herself reply. Corrin was certain that moments especially like these were when a dragon did not show weakness.

"A pity."

A little while later when night had fallen, Corrin slipped away from camp to where the horses were kept. Finding the familiar dark warhorse, she smiled, tossing it a sugar cube from her packs.

"You're the nosiest war-horse in existance, you know that?" She grinned, giving a pat to the beast whose masked visage many a warrior saw before their life flashed before their eyes. "But thank you for not minding your own business today."


	14. Test of the Sage

"Hello? Your Holiness?" Corrin watched as the young man, who was possibly the most optimistic cavalier in all of the kingdom, knocked on the thick gates of the fortress for what appeared to be the thirtieth time. They had split off, taking one of two main gates of the Sevenfold Sanctuary. They reached the enormous stronghold after several days' ride.

"Silas, he's not going to go to the door himself." Scowling, Corrin hopped off the back of the horse and walked towards the side of the gates. "I mean, there's always the chance that we're not meant to meet him. But there's a reason tha the stories don't mention that he literally opens the gates and lets you in."

"If the doors are locked,"purred Niles, "then all that's left to do is fine wherever the spare key is kept." He paced around, looking upwardsm, likely casing the structure for a place to grapple upwards.

Finding nothing, the three retainers looked back towards the shut gates of the fortress, which by all appearances were smooth slabs of stone sealed shut. No locks, latches or opening mechanisms were in sight.

"I'm afraid this scouting mission isn't bearing much fruit." Corrin commented.

"Be patient. Information doesn't come easily to those that are hastty." The thief wagged a knowing finger at her, shouldered his bow, and peered upwards again.

From the sky dropped a familiar wyvern rider, who shook her head as she landed. "There's a little movement within the gates, but archer towers are stationed close enough that I can't fly too low to the ground." Beruka scratched the side of her face ruefully. "Looks like that's not going to be a way in for me and Lady Camilla."

Most fortresses and sanctuaries atop mountains anticipated flyers with ballistaes. The Sage was no different than any noble that chose a remote spot for their villas.

The hilt of her sword tapped against the gate slightly. There was a sheen to the weapon that glowed a purplish blue, and a faint rumble. Startled, Corrin leapt back as the gates ceased moving.

"Hmm, try touching that sword to the gates again," suggested Niles, all business for once. Following his advice, she drew the blade and, with a flick of her wrist, slashed at the surface of the door. Though the blow glanced off its surface, the rumbling sped up as the gates churned with a rumble. Machinery that was powered by incomphrehensible magics were set in motion even as Corrin sheathed the Yato and peered into the entrance of the sanctuary. Beruka sped off to find the rest of the group.

The room that Corrin looked into was unadorned and untouched, with stairwells leading in two different directions into rooms and halls that she could not map out right away. That was fine. They had time to figure out what they needed as long as the steps were steady and everyone knew where to go.

"At your command." Her words carried the same distance when she protected the Nohrian royals. Xander filed into the entrance hall at the rear of the group, impassively nodding at her. Questions hooked into her as he spoke quietly with Niles and Beruka. _Do I need to resign from my duties? When can I speak to you again?_

It was silly, she thought. Nothing significant had changed, even if it was a nice little pleasant distraction that had filled a brief moment a few days ago.

The answer, practially speaking, was to do so once she had finished deciphering what everything had meant— the tapestry, the sword, and the songstress. That was important enough to work against her pride. She had been physically wounded before, and knew what to expect. There was no guarantee that indulging in her feelings wouldn't come at a similarly hurtful price.

"Be on alert" Leo guided his horse towards the front of the group. "I hear armored footsteps." Indeed, the sound of weapons and armor clattered up one of the nearby stairwells. In a matter of seconds, three spearmen clad in Hoshido's liveries rushed up the stairs.

"Have they conquiered the Sevenfold Sanctuary?" asked Xander.

"Any nation's kings or knights or peasant has a right to speak to the Sage," Camilla answered. "Well, if he's taken a liking to them." She readied her steel axe and grinned. "What's a few Hoshidans to making sure your quest is completed?"

"Impossible…We've received no reports of Hoshidans attempting the same pilgrimage." Xander insisted.

Leo was observing their movements in silence from a distance. At last, he raised his hand. "Their armor is Hoshidan, but there's something…not quite right about those soldiers. Look at their eyes."

Corrin had fought a great deal of people in numerous occasions where the lives of Xander, Leo, Camilla and Elise were in danger. She had faced down reluctant sellswords and bloodthirsty assassins, but each face that she had seen on a foe had some degree of emotion. The spear-fighters that advanced towards them did so as if only muscle memory propelled their legs forward. Their eyes were identically impassive, as if a great invisible puppetmaster directed them. But with the practiced swing of a halberdier, one approached Niles and swung for the thief's torso.

As the adventurer jumped out of the way, she saw him nock and arrow, a ferocious snarl twisting his features into seriousness. In a matter of seconds, he flicked his wrist towards his quiver, drew an arrow, and sent a wickedly sharp shot into the spear-fighter's chest. But where a normal soldier would have cried out in pain or doubled over, the only reaction it garnered fro the phantom-like soldier was a glance towards where the arrow had lodged and continued to lope towards the group steadily.

Several arrows and a strike from Xander's lance sent the soldier and several of his compatriots to their demises. But even as they lay bleeding out on the tiles of the Sanctuary, they remained inexpressive.

She had never taken pained cries from her enemies as a source of solace. But absolute silence from a foe sent a chill down Corrin's spine.

"Just what are these men…?" Turning from where she had fended off a scroll-wielding diviner, Corrin knelt down to examine a fallen soldier. Their shapes were human enough, but lacked something crucial that kept them human. As they fell from battle, they landed like dolls without joints, collapsing to the floor as if a spell powering them simply ran out.

"Human or not, I will protect Lord Leo from these fiends!" Odin puffed out his chest, visibly excited about the Sorcerer's cloak that he had been awarded by the magical academy that winter. He had sent lightning hurtling towards a sword-wielding samurai with the same energitic eagerness he had always carried himself with.

A Malig Knight awaited them in the next hall, her face hidden by her helmet. She and several knights surrounded the next staircase and a small chest of finely-carved wood and gilt.

"That's a Nohrian soldier, isn't it? Do you recognize her?" Corrin turned to Camilla. The other woman shook her head grimly. Defections from the army weren't an impossible occurrence, but like the spear-fighters and diviners, their movements were mechanical and almost automatic. As soon as they caught sight of the advancing group, the phantom soldiers moved moved without hesitation, weapons drawn.

"Alright, then." Pulling the Yato free from its sheath, Corrin charged forward, feeling her body tense as it got accustomed to cutting down someone whose uniform sigil matched her very own. Adrenaline lightened her step as she leapt upwards, driving the point of the blade towards the wyvern's neck. It cut deep into the creature's side, sending it toppling to the side with an anguished shriek, alive in ways that the woman that it held its reins couldn't be.

To her right, she saw a knight, weakened by several of Jakob's daggers to its front, topple over from the strike of a Hammer, a blunt axe meant to paralyze the bones of armor-clad fighters. Even Beruka, the seasoned assassin among them, wore a grimace as she set her wyvern into a descent, landing without so much as a snap of her mount's wings.

Before Corrin had a chance to catch her breath properly, she saw a brief wave from Niles, who was knelt over the small chest at the rear of the room. "Well, that's no good. Lords, Ladies, you're going to want to take a look at this. "

The discovery must have been important, thought Corrin, if it had made Niles recall that he was advised to use titles when addressing anyone but Leo. With caution tightening her steps, Corrin approached.

Inside the chest was a key that, from its design, appeared to be made of the same material as the stone gates. That wasn't the problem, though.

Around it, someone had tied a bright red ribbon. The certainty of danger seized Corrin suddenly. Springing to her feet and snatching the key out of Niles' grasp, she ran over and brandished it at Xander.

"We have to leave." She said. "It was a trap. There's no telling what the bandit's done to the Sanctuary—"

Both of them turned as something deeper within the fortress let out a deafening roar. With a thundering boom, something large and solid sailed across the sky to land on the staircase they had just taken. A boulder had sealed off the way that they had taken into the Sevenfold Sanctuary.

"That's the cry of a Stoneborn. A cousin of the Faceless," Leo frowned. "Iago conjured one to guard one of Nohr's borders, but I've never liked the idea of deploying them."

"I pity whatever guard gets stuck on guard duty with that."

"A ballista that is tireless and devastating." The young prince commented bitterly. "I suppose if one must wage war, one readies the deadliest weapons that magic can devise." He looked down at the key in her hand. "Lord Brother, what do you make of this?"

Corrin handed the key over, meeting his gaze briefly. The battles with the Sage's soldiers had done nothing to him, but the same ribbon had spelled out danger towards his family countless times. A heavy silence blanketed the expedition group, as knights and retainers alike waited for his next words.

She saw a glimpse of Xander's uneasiness and uncertainty. Where others might have seen the same withdrawn prince that thought strategies through before making his choice, she recognized that inside he weighed whether or not his soldiers would make it out of danger, whether Nohr's honor would be sullied by what he could and could not do. At last he spoke up, his voice far steadier than that of a paladin that had just fought off two skirmishes.

"If the bandit or a lieutenant of theirs is here, we attack, and send a clear message." He looked ahead, his gaze as piercing as a young hawk's path of flight. "Nohr cannot run from that which threatens it. If we are to face this foe, we do so on our terms." At his side, there was a crackling noise as the blade of Siegfried hummed. As if it was second nature, he unsheathed it, raised it high, and swung it out at the boulder. The weapon glowed a grim shade of scarlet as a black bolt of energy shot towards the giant stone. Corrin heard the give of stone as it was cleaved in two, its pieces crumbling apart like enormous crumbs of clay and rubble.

"If any choose to turn back, I will allow it. This mission is dangerous. But I would rather have you fight alongside me, knights and soldiers. This bandit threatens the royal House, and must be stopped." Raising Siegfried once more, Xander pointed forward.

Not a single knight peeled from the group. With newfound determination, Corrin leapt onto the saddle of the nearest cavalier and sped off upwards into the Sanctuary's next chamber. It had taken the words of a king ready to lead to wield Siegfried, and there were a great many things she had wanted to say to him. The pieces for whatever game, whatever series of events that had the potential to devastate or end in triumph, had been set in motion. Whether they would both end the game still standing was up to what she would do next.


	15. The Bandit's Gambit

Faceless had mixed with the Fortress' phantom soldiers, blocking their way and even attacking some of the sentries that lilely originally served the sage.

"I do believe I'm getting a bit nostalgic, fighting these again." A smirk worked its way onto Jakob's face as he drew his arm back, studying the monstrocity as he would a roast ham that he was asked to carve apart. It disturbed Corrin how easily his mind would turn from combat to cooking, cleaning or straightening picture frames. Charging ahead as soon as the Faceless was staggered by the throwing knives, she swung the Yato, striking monsters away and clearing a path for Silas and Xander, who charged forward through the narrow hallway. The rest of the group followed suit.

"We need to find the source of those. I don't know how long we're going to be able to fight these and the Sage's men off." Leo guided his horse after the two knights. "Niles."

"Milord."

Wordlessly, Leo flipped to a book of the tone and pointed towards a high wall. Branches sprouted and grew from nothing, forming a tree's canopy without roots. As the shimmer of magc in the air faded, Niles leapt up on to one of the branches.

"All dressed up and ready to scout, Lord Leo." With a jaunty wave, he scrambled over the wall and was gone in a whirl his cloak.

"Excellent. Corrin, hop on. Let's catch up with Lord Brother. Odin, guard us from attacks from behind."

"I'll fight with you until the very end, Lord Leo! The unending darkness will never take us, with my conniving collection of cantrips!" The young sorcerer's eager voice boomed as he kept pace, clutching his tome to his chest for dear life. Corrin, knowing that the young Nohrian prince had sharp ears, bit back a complaint about his choice of retainer. But she had to admit that the enthusiasm was a little endearing.

Not that she was one to talk about boundaries with the noble that she had sworn to protect, either. For a few moments, Corrin had forgotten just what had happened. There was the curse that locked away powerful secrets from him, and an encounter where she had given into her impulses and left her thoughts askew ever since. It had unnecessarily complicated things between her and Xander. But if she was honest, it was a feeling that unfurled, day by day, since the first time he had fought for her life by not drawing his sword to fight her.

"So," Leo's voice took on the snide tone it did when he was about to take the last chess piece from an opponent. "My brother's been turning a bit red when you walk into a room lately."

Corrin made a move to leap off the horse then and there, but the dark mage's hand steadied her shoulder. "Sorry. What I meant was that …how do I say this…." She desperately wished for several Entombed to burst from the walls as he searched for the next words.

Leo set the horse into a quicker gallop, still scanning the branches of the Brynhildr spell for any signals from Niles. He cleared his throat, and began. "We must pretend at all times to be many things in order to serve the people of Nohr. I the aspiring strategist, Camilla the warrior-socialite, and Elise, our hope for a better future. Xander has shouldered many burdens as our pillar, and worked hard to shut off anyone that might compromise us. For him to never— and I mean never— put up walls around you is a very rare thing, Corrin."

His voice was low and steady, and his words were measured but earnest, which was rare for the usually sarcastic, rational young prince.. "I hope you'll consider that."

Corrin had. But vocalizing it — vocalizing everything— was a test in itself. "I'll speak to him as soon as we get a moment's rest." It wasn't the most poignant or heartrending of responses, but it was what she could muster up on short notice— ever practical, ever graceless Corrin. Leo had given her neither his approval nor his dismissal, but a measured warning at what the two of them had truly gotten themselves into. He was, true to his nature, a pragmatist on just about everything.

"Leo, I swore to protect him, and by extension, all of you. Nothing is going to change that." It was far easier to lie than to talk about curses. But her words weren't a complete falsehood— Corrin felt at least knowing that she would try as long as she could to keep them safe.

"It's true," puffed Odin, running from behind, his tome drawn and his eyes alert. "I have heard tales of your feats of defeating the dimensional terrors of the Faceless in the swamps to save Prince Leo and Princess Elise, with nothing but a ribbon and a few locks of hair—"

The knights had probably started to talk of that mission, spreading the word of what she could do from that day forward.

Just then, Niles leapt down from the bespelled trees. "Looks like the usual suspects are here." He let a length of red ribbons holding a bundle of arrows together fall into Leo's palm. "And I'd be careful. These are nasty bolts— Spellbane, Shining arrows…Someone's stocked up for us."

The din of a scuffle broke out in a room off to the side. Hearing it, Leo guided his horse into the chamber, which appeared to lead towards a locked door of heavy marble. It stretched almost from floor to ceiling, and sat at the end of the square chamber where Xander, Camilla, Beruka, and the rest of their band of knights squared off against a band of soldiers. The fighters were a mix of Hoshidans and Nohrians, but all seemed to shimmer with an otherworldly energy altogether. From the frantic looks of Xander and Camilla, who were darting glances as they swung at their foes, the magic coating them had rendered them invisible. The assailants' images flickered in and out even to Corrin, who could make out faint outlines of weapons, grimaced faces, and shifting movements.

"Leo, we need to find what's casting this spell. Any ideas?" She asked.

"It's an advance working, and whoever cloaked these men is hiding the source of the caster, as well.." He observed. "This will take some time to unwork." He snapped the Brynhildr tome closed and reached for a smaller book in his packs. With a gesture and a glow of magical sigils, Leo guided his horse closer to the walls of the room to check for the spell's source.

Leaving him and Odin to their work, she charged towards the invisible soldiers, the stone at her neck glowing and pulsating with anticipation. Leaping up into the air, Corrin landed with a shockwave, summoning and sending a wave of water crashing into the fray.

"What took you so long?" snapped Beruka, raising her poleax from where she had finished severing a warrior's ehad from his neck, likely because he had tried to do the same to Camilla. "There's something behind that door we've been trying to get to, and the key Prince Xander has doesn't work."

Besides Corrin, Niles cracked his knuckles and shot a snide grin at the assassin. "Sounds like you tried to give a prince a thief's job."

"You can complain about what he's not good at after you pick the lock." Corrin's voice echoied through the bespelled water as Xander flung the marble key to the thief, who barreled towards the door, weaving his way through a volley of spells that an invisible Oni Chieftan flung his way. Failing to hit the thief, the enrased assailant turned her attention to Corrin, who pawed at the ground, leaping back and preparing to charge. Anger and anticipation gnawed at the base of her belly, reaching down past her human instincts to a well of magic and reflexes meant to protect something she wasn't quite aware of.

A wave of water and a ferocious dragon toppled into the Oni Chieftan, sending her flying before a spike of darkness pierced through the Hoshidan warrior's thick armor. She flew to the floor with a sickening thud, and went motionless.

"You're getting the hang of this."

"Of course. One must always be resourceful." There was a hint of pride in Xander's voice. He glowed with confidence as he re-leveled Siegfried and struck at a helmed, masked Nohrian Berserker.

As the light from her dragonstone faded, Corrin drew the Yato and ran towards the doors, where Niles was standing over it.

"So, this is going to require a few weapons near it to get it open. Your pretty little blade there—"

"That magnificent specimen over there—mmm,mmm,mmm, how he uses it. " He gestured at Siegfried, shining and menacingly obsidian as Xander hacked at the unfortunate Berserker, shooting a look at Corrin with raised eyebrows. Niles was never one to avoid making ribald jokes, even when he was on the job.

"Is that all?" She asked, turning her wrists in a circle, hurrying him on, making a mental note that the less Niles knew about anything concerning her and Xander, the better.

"And last but not least, Lord Leo's tome." The younger prince was inspecting something in the far corner of the room, deep in concentration. "The Sage is a legendary smith, said to have forged blades, tomes, bows, you name royal and legendary weapons, and he's probably made em'." The thief's eyes glittered with anticipation, as if he was planning on making off with a few rare weapons before all was said and done. "But, his pickiness wants weapon-wielders to be there before this key works. So, gather the princes, get over here, and—" he mimed the doors opening.

"Understood." Corrin took the key out of his hands.

"And may I say, congratulations on making up from your little tiff with your liege." He winked, which was impressive for a man with one visible eye. It took more energy than Corrin was willing to spend to not bury her head into her hands, but with some difficulty, she sped back towards where Leo was conducting his investigation.

The spell had evidently puzzled the young prince, who was conferring with Odin on the particulars of a specific section of the wall. As Leon explained out something that Corrin couldn't quite understand, though, she watched as Odin's hand strayed to a small object at his side.

It was visible from even far away. In his hands was an ornate red ribbon, coated in wax.

She was never a student of the magical arts, but in silence, Corrin observed as a purple haze moved from Odin's fingertips into the ribbon, cloaking it in a power that caused it to shimmer like the soldiers had done. He had his hands behind his back, obscured from Leo's view. Her breath hitched as the sorcerer nodded or made affirmative, emphatic, and remarks that she had read as unsuspicious enthusiasm all this time.

What had she never known about the mage before now?

As Corrin approached, muffling her footsteps, she heard Odin speak up. "Prince Leo, if you'll allow me—" A wave of his hand, and the ribbon descended towards Leo's wrist, as Odin made a move to tie the bespelled ribbon onto the prince.

"Don't make another move, bandit," Corrin snapped. Her sword was drawn and held pointed at the sorcerer's neck. Leo, previously deep in thought over his magical problemsolving, was taken aback. "What is the meaning of this?" He asked, annoyance clouding his words. She would have to choose her response carefully.

"The meaning of this is that he was trying to use this," She held Odin's wrist so tight it almost broke, "on you."

The spell on the ribbon was almost complete, but there was a visible bit of red silk at the end of it that stuck out. Leo snatched it out of a protesting Odin's hands.

"I was working on finding its properties, and to identify which Eldrich master it served—"

"The only master I'm interested in finding is yours. If you're not the bandit himself." She lowered the blade closer. "Odin, I want answers, because there's a long list of occasions where Nohr's royal family was put into danger at the hands of the Red-ribbon."

A shadow came over the sorcerer's face. A chill crept into the air as Leo hurried away from the wall and retrieved the Brynhilder tome, clutching its spine so tight that his fingers nearly turned white. He moved swiftly as he re-mounted his horse, and began the incantations for a spell.

"Answers? You think you can get those so easily, stomping around demanding people tell you the truth? I spent years in the court uncovering the secrets of sorcery, to know how to enchant Faceless, to turn soldiers invisible and command them through the arcane. I, Odin Dark, have surpassed the limits of knowledge to overflow with power! What of you, truth-seeker?! Will you simply believe their lies to you?" He gestured over to Leo, then to Xander and Camilla, still kept busy by the invisible soldiers.

Corrin glared back, cursing every second she had lost sleep over the attacks that the Red-Ribbon had launched on people that she had trusted, and people who had done nothing but seek peace.

"I don't take advice on the truth from spies." She crouched, and then struck hard with the Yato. Trees sprouted from the ground as the Sorcerer was trapped, tangled in otherworldy branches that had previously served as a platform for Niles. They knocked Odin off balance, and Corrin felt her sword strike his side with a sudden lurch, then swung at him again, her aim just as focused.

Across the room, a shudder ran through the movements of the soldiers, whose limbs moved unsteadily and a little unlike the Sage's summoned phantoms. Odin was panting, clutching at the wound in desperation. But the Yato had cut its mark, truly and surely. As the trees from the Brynhildr disappeared, he slumped to the ground, bleeding from a gash that ran from hip to belly. As the sorceror lost focus, the soldiers at his command fell, one by one.

Corrin struggled to speak over the sound of Odin's now-heavy breathing. "I…I had never imagined meeting the Champion that the prophecy spoke of." As he lay, still holding his side, his eyes clouded with tears. "Was this journey for nothing, my friends?" As Xander approached, his eyes flashed with anger and he made a move towards his sword-belt. Corrin stayed his hand. "He's already…" She said quietly.

Odin spoke to none of them in particular, instead looking past the Nohrians loomed over him and through to the ceilng. "We've made such a far journey, only to see her choose differently. My friends, I'm sorry. I…I…wanted to go back…" His eyes clouded over as his hand slumped limply to the floor.

Leo's mouth was set in a line as he closed his book, and then his eyes. Corrin heard him draw breath unsteadily, before speaking up once more. Xander, despite his equally sullen demeanor, looked away from the sorceror's body as well.

"We had better get a move on. Has anyone figured out how to open that gate?" Leo's voice didn't waver in the slightest. Corrin doubted if he was in a willing mood to discuss what had just happened, particularly in the company of subordinate knights. She wasn't ready to talk either.

"It opens with the key and our weapons." Corrin held up a hastily-polished Yato, thanking Jakob silently. "Yours, mines, and Xander."

As the three of them approached the door along with the key, returned from a mercifully silent Niles, She felt the sword warm and pulse with the same energy as her dragonstone. Around Siegfried and Brynhilder was a blue-colored aura that covered the surface of blade and book, bathing the room in light. For a moment, a feeling that cleared the despair that Corrin felt and the pain of something wrenching her heart apart, dissapating her burdens, swept over her.

The blade she held when she came to was different, its guard and shape changed to something of a broad calvary saber studded with two glowing gems the color of snow. A bright radiant-gold light emenated from the weapon itself. It was a sword she had seen in dreams and had seen at the side of the dragon in the tapestry's prophecies.

"Prophecies are easier said than done, I guess." She turned the key, soiled but undented, over in her hands. Her heart beating fast, she slid it into the marble doorway and turned.

The click of the key stirred Corrin awake from ruminating further on just what the sword was and what it had meant. At long last, after a battle that tested them in combat and in spirit, they could see what answers the Sage had to offer.


	16. Sage's Library

The door opened to a hallway of wrought stone that wouldn't have looked out of place in one of Nohr's fine manor houses. The pale walls and the tiled walkways of the fortress where their previous battles had taken place were nowhere to be seen. Xander suspected that it was enchanted in some way to acclimate the Sage's visitors a little, and smiled wearily as each of them shuffled through the entryway, leaving horses and wyverns in a large tall chamber to await their eventual departure.

It was a beautiful little home, carved out in the mountains and away from everything. On a usual day, he would likely have found himself enjoying the sereneness. Though he took little meaning from the practice of magic, Xander would walk among the groves of the magic academy where Leo would conduct research. It was a silent place where walks could almost take on a meditative quality, and the sage's home offered the same quiet respite.

Leo's sullennness was palpable as they wandered about the quarters with some aimlessness. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Corrin glance down at her hands with trepidation. She had killed before and went on to finish dinners gusto or headed out on strolls. But the sorceror Odin's death raised questions that troubled Xander. He had infiltrated the household and tried on three separate occasions to cause harm to the royal family. Corrin had no choice.

But when Corrin looked straight at him, a chill ran through Xander, as if she saw through him and everything they knew, and was looking into other possibilities than what she had decided. His hands at his side clenched into fists, wanting to take her somewhere and talk quietly, to give her more time to process what just had happened, and to comfort her. But such was not the proper behavior for a commander.

Relenting to an impulse that seemed to be getting the better of him, he walked over, knowing full well that there was nothing he could say that could reverse what she had seen— what they all had seen, really.

"Is there anything you that need?" He asked. Wordlessly and subtly, so that no one could see, she reached over and curled her fingers around his, still looking aimlessly into space.

"A little time before I try anything like that again, probably."

"What did he say to you before he drew his last breath?"

"…that I was a… Champion? He said he had wanted to meet me, and then something about friends….That means that he's got allies somewhere." Corrin worried the hem of her cape, her expression unreadable. Her mind was already at work to find the next danger that lay ahead. "Other Red-ribbon bandits likely lie ahead. And I'll fight every last one of them off." She grit her teeth, ready to press ahead even if it killed her in the process.

"You will rest first. That's an order." They were in front of the others, and it was the best that he could come up with. But already, a multitude of other things he had wanted to tell her had captured Xander's attention. Corrin was troubled, and he had nothing for her, which was troubling in itself.

That was the champion that his father had found, somewhere out in the kingdom, and raised in the art of the sword in one of Nohr's northern fortress. As a soldier, Corrin had earned his respect as soon as she drew her sword and charged at a Faceless without hesitation, just to reach the place that Leo and Elise were kept. But that wasn't the entire picture. Not even close to it.

Xander knew that he had never been easy to get along with, written off by other courtiers as a puppet that followed whatever his father said, or a cold desk-bound knight who just could happen to fight admirably when he took the field. But where others had seen someone to overlook, she would look straight at him without fail, and speak to him without contempt.

That had meant more to him than anything he could imagine, but those were words that lodged in his throat before he could say them to her.

The sound of water brewing in a large kettle over a crackling fire greeted them as they walked further into the hall. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw that Camilla had seen them, hand in hand. A slight smile curled onto her face, which could have meant anything from satisfaction to the fact that he was going to hear a lot of grief from her. Or both. Glancing over at his sister, he glared just slightly and shook his head. She raised her eyebrows, and then turned away, savoring what she had just seen and likely no less discouraged by the motion. He could hear her breath quietly quicken at the press of his fingers into the small of her wrist.

Xander let Corrin's hand drop from his side and approached Leo, who inspected the walls of the room. The kettle still brewed merrily over the hearth in the center of the room, but slowly, one by one, other features materialized, popping into existence as if they were pieces of furniture that invisible servants had slid into the room. The were square and flat but of all different sizes and colors, sliding out of the walls until they popped onto shelves. Spellbooks, histories, and novels of Nohr he recognized from lessons came into view first. Then stacks of scrolls written in Hoshidan that he couldn't joined them. The shelves were packed with miscellaneous magical objects, as well— amulets, dracoshields, and even a cloak of feathers that were said to strengthen a warrior so that even keen blades couldn't slice through them.

He retrieved one volume from the shelf and leafed through it, having seen the sigil of Nohr stamped on the cover in gold leaf. The histories that it detailed ranged from the kingdom's most ancient of days to— impossibly enough, the early history of him and his siblings.

A door emerged as soon as the library, complete with a spiralled staircase and shelves filled with books from floor to ceiling, had finished its gradual enchanted appearance. Laughing and in the middle of a conversation, two men appeared— one old and wizened, the other middle-aged and robed in pale, fine clothing resembling a Hoshidan high priest's. But Xander knew who the prophet with fine facial features was, because he had seen the man speak to his father in a summit many years ago. He was an archduke said to be a prophet that communed with the gods.

"Izana of Izumo, well met." Xander nodded politely, walking to the front of their traveling party.

"You took so long getting through the Sanctuary! The food I prepared for all of you got cold, Crown Prince Xander of Nohr." The archduke's grin stretched wide onto his face as he clasped his hands together, delighted to see that they had made it into the sage's residence. "But it's still tasty— or my hair isn't perfect. Well?"

"That's the only reason I let him in," the Sage's voice was low and rumbly, but had a directness to it. Despite himself and the harrowing day that they had all gone through, Xander laughed.

He stayed behind a little before everyone else proceeded to their well-sought meal and a bit of rest. The Sage, who he had sought for so long for adivice and insight, looked at him curiously. The old man seemed as ordinary as any other elder, leaning on his walking stickand waiting.

"May I borrow this?" Xander

"To know your own history is a weapon itself, my boy. Of course." The Sage answered, brushing past the need for titles. Then again, in the domain at the top of a mountain that belonged to no nation, did the domain belong to anyone else?

With that, he swept the Crown Prince past his library and onwards to join the others.

Though the grilled fish, soup and vegetables had gone cold, Corrin found it to be far better fare than whatever they could hunt, forage, or dig out of ration packs on the road. Though the Sanctum of the Rainbow sage had offered up just about the strangest trials she had ever fought against, the house was nothing short of a marvel. Her gaze strayed to the furniture, which seemed to shift in and out of the walls and floors at will, chairs materializing for a dinner table one minute and sweapped for comfortable couches, cushions, and a low table the next., with some of the shelves from the Sage's library reappearing, as if the room had always contained books. The sight was dizzying, and likely a reflection of the mind of its master— constantly shifting, and never sitting quite still.

"Very few have proven worthy to seek an audience with me." The Sage had chosen to speak to her, Xander, Camilla, and Leo, one at a time with Izana bustling the rest of the knights off to what he claimed to be a "dessert that won me several accolades from the Queen of Hoshido herself." Sitting around the hearth and nursing tea in earthenware mugs, she awaited his advice, curious as to just what it was that he had to say. He had asked for her first, a choice that caused her to glance at Xander nervously.

But there was not a hint of malice in the prince's eyes. Instead, he was intently reading something off of one of the Sage's shelves. She walked into her own audience with the Sage with some confusion.

"I know. It's an honor to find someone who has granted strength to warriors of every realm in times of need."

"It's been a long time since I have found one of my own. Let me see that blade…"

"Wait, I'm sorry, you're also a—" As the Yato was taken from her hands and slid into the palms of the Rainbow Sage, its blade became cloaked in the same white halo that she had seen the gates charge it with.

"This is the Champion's Yato. It is said to be not only a devastating weapon, but a key to which a kingdom rises to glory or falls into ruins. It is blessed with the trust of two wielders of divine weapons— in your case, the longsword Siegfried and the tome Brynhildr, of Nohr," explained the Sage. "A fine weapon you've chosen to wield."

"It feels like I've been waiting for a sword like this all my life, but…." She hedged, afraid that someone like the Sage couldn't break past what she knew to be the curse holding her back. "What if this prophecy doesn't take hold? What if the freedom I wanted will never come to fruition?" More questions were unsaid, because she didn't want the wise man that they had worked so hard to meet to know that she was scared of what the tests ahead would do to her— to all of them.

"A prophecy is only as good as you believe it to be, my dear." The Sage answered, as if he had expected the uncertainty from her. "Find what you draw strength from, and hold fast. Now, go with my blessing, young Champion."

Once again, information had come to her in bits and pieces— first from the young sorceror she had slain, and now from the Sage who so many tales had said would grant her strength. Corrin would certainly walk away from the Sanctum stronger, as her steps felt light and her sword reflexes readier than ever. There was no question, of course, that her role was to protect. But what was a sword that had learned to think for itself?

That was a riddle, and she was, for good or ill, the living answer.


	17. The Lost Princess

"You're always so puzzled by everything, dear. Are you sure you weren't made to join the magic academy?" Camilla leaned against the soft cushions of one of the Sage's rooms. They had each met with the Sage, and were waiting on Leo. Xander remained in the room as well but was in the midst of reading something in the tome of Nohrian history that made him furrow his brow even moreso than usual. She decided not to speak to him, for now.

"Sorcerors aren't the only ones with any curiosity in this kingdom, are they?"

"Oh, no. You should join me for tea with a few of the ladies." Camilla laughed, bitterness tinging her voice as she reached for a tea-flavored biscuit. "They'll become curious about everything about you just like that." She snapped with her free hand.

"If they aren't already. Nothing gets attention quite like a dragon monster, I guess…" Corrin ran a hand through her freshly-washed hair.

"Mm, but dear, you're making such a good name for yourself. How excited father will be when we tell him that the Red-Ribbon bandit has been sliced to bits by your sword." The description, though maudlin, was something of a habit for Camilla, who was as fierce as much as she was talkative. Corrin assumed that that mindset was how she survived high tea with Nohrian ladies, who, if she assumed correctly, did not wield battle-axes.

"There's supposed to be a portrait of a concubine that was…chased out, I think? Would you know anything about that?"

The older girl shifted against the cushions, drawling a warm, thick blanket around herself like a very comfortable cloak. "Lady Arete," she said at last, her voice soft and weighted with doubt. "Now why would you want to know about her?"

"We think that the Songstress your father may want to see is her daughter."

"Mm," The Princess tapped her chin with her index finger. "A lost princess, forgotten by a court that didn't take her. That happens more times in our history than I can count, my dear."

From his seat, Xander looked over at them over the middle of the chapter he was leafing through carefully. He worked his jaw momentarily, as if he had something to say. Corrin peered over at him curiously, only to find a flustered expression bloom over his features. As Xander ducked back into the book, she turned back to Camilla, looping her hands over her knees and propping her back against a tall square pilow.

"Lady Arete was known by my mother as, well," she giggled. "That horrid woman who never gave back my good hairbrush. But there's more to it than that. Her voice in singing and in speaking enchanted Father in ways that some say he hadn't felt since Queen Katerina passed some years ago." At the mention of the late queen, her gaze met Xander's, who furrowed his brow.

"My mother." She couldn't read how he felt, but saw turmoil roiling his thoughts and his words.

"Yes. Well, her loyallists remained in the court and took power where she had left it. And they were loath to grant it to some newcomer witch from a kingdom she couldn't even talk about. And why should they give quarter to someone that had earned nothing? And with a child that wasn't the king's in tow, at that? " A menacing, flashing grin crept across Camilla's face, but Corrin knew it was simply an embellishment to the story. She had her kind side, if someone had earned kindness according to her logic.

"Here's where the story gets muddled— or good, if you're into gossiping. The ladies worked with a sorcerer, and tricked her into bespelling the tapestries of the palace to tell of a victory that our father would achieve. But what it showed instead was a prophecy of Nohr's crimes against the dragons that guarded the kindgom that she had been born into." Camilla frowned, her mouth set in a way that suggested that she, too, had seen the tapestries in question. "Really, dear, they don't do your appearance justice. It's not cute at all."

"I like how the dragon looks on those—" protested Corrin. It was one of the most ferocious renderings of her—people? Species? She wasn't quite sure. But whatever spell had woven the tapestry together had captured her likeness in all its strange, ferocious ways.

"To each their own," shrugged the older princess. "But Arete took her daughter and disappeared from the palace when the spell was complete. And since then, there's been no sign of her—well, unless you and Lord Brother's songstress turns out to be that Princess. That would be a grand bit of news, wouldn't it?"

"Well…I…I guess it would."

"We've had a poor harvest, and it would do wonders to cheer father up with a song. He's been trying so hard to patch things up with kingdoms around us. Elise seemed to have had a wonderful time at that concert, as well." Camilla's eyes sparkled, and Corrin knew that after the trial of the Sage had concluded and they were settled back in Windmire, she was likely to go to work planning the city's spring festivites.

"Well," The princess yawned, pulling the ends of the blanket up. "I've got a long day of flying tomorrow." She rose from the cushions and started off towards where the womens' quarters were. Without a word, she looked at Xander, then to Corrin, and winked.

"It's not what you think—"

Still saying nothing, she sauntered away, leaving Corrin stammering out far more words than she was accustomed to saying.

"It's not?" Realizing her worst fears outside of a samurai wielding a Wyrmslayer materialziing then and there, Xander had finished the section he was reading and was watching her, his eyes darkened and his head tilted slightly to the side in mock confusion. "I could have sworn…"

She snorted, stifling back laughter. "Don't do this to me." Pausing, she peered down at the book he was reading before shifting her gaze to meet his. "I mean…I don't know exactly what 'it' is, I suppose."

Infatuation was the most liley culprit. They had spent time in close proximity for years, and she knew keenly Xander's sword stance and the way that his sternness could be melted away by one look from Elise. More frighteningly, she wanted to know where they could go from there, starting with a slow kiss that had been impossible after days spent in mixed company where word would spread too fast.

Where he had been tentative the last time they met, Xander had found new determination as he gently shifted the curtain of hair on the side of Corrin's face over her shoulder, cupping her cheek gently and savoring the moment that was quiet but all too fleeting. She sighed against him knowing that he could feel the sound from her lips and her heartstrings pull taut against the pressure of the kiss. The faint taste of mint from supper earlier that evening cooled her tongue, lingering even as he pulled back. The sight of him, dishevleled and undone and a little in awe, was enough to break her heart in two. And there weren't a great many things that she could have said that about. Hearing Xander draw a ragged breath as he drew his hand up to run his hands through her hair, chasing her thoughts of everything else away.

"Maybe it was what she thought," she chuckled. "I'm not very good at hiding my secrets, apparently."

"Two entirely too forthright knights of Nohr," Xander commented dryly.

Corrin shoved him playfully, jostling him to the side as she underestimated her strength slightly. "But you're not just a knight. Come on, you can't get humble like this when—you know."

"I'll have you with me, won't I?" His question was laced with a hope that she had never seen in him. Xander didn't deal in hope— he dealt in results that he worked towards or ones that he had been certain in. But certainty was rare when it came to the heart, and it frightened her immensely that that was so.

"I want to be by your side as long as I possibly can," she answered, taking his hands— and the calluses she knew by heart, squeezing as he had done to comfort her in the aftermath of taking the life of Odin the sorceror. "I will do everything in my power to do that. But you'll have to trust me just once more."

A pause that stretched on for much longer than she liked filled the air, as if an invisible troupe of servants had set up camp and hung heavy draperies all around them. But she knew that Xander would have an answer for her, good or bad. He never minced words. Unfortunately, that was something that only a person who was beyond infatuation would know.

"Okay."

She let go reluctantly, her heart still racing as she departed to get rest that was more necessary than ever. But seeing his smile, tinged with more than a bit of wistfulness as he picked the book back up. As she glanced at the cover, the words of the title, stamped into the spine of the tome, became apparent.

"…A history of Nohr and Valla?" The last word was metallic and sour on her tongue. At the sound of it, the vision of the room swirled around her as she gripped the side of a pillow, struggling to keep balance. The last thing Corrin saw was Xander rush towards her and call out for a healer, before something— slumber or unconsciousness, she couldn't tell— overtake her.


End file.
